Savage Nights (Les Nuit Fauves) would herald the debut of a promising new French writer-director, Cyril Collard, had not Collard died only three days before his film swept the Cesar Awards (the French Oscars). As a debut, Savage Nights is still an attention-grabber but Collard’s death from AIDS makes it his only film in addition to his debut film. Set in 1986, the story is about a complicated love triangle among an HIV-positive bisexual man Jean (played by Collard) who is caught between another bisexual man Samy (Lopez) and an 18-year-old girl Laura (Bohringer). Jean also indulges in anonymous sex with strangers. There’s also another story going on in Savage Nights, a story about the evolution of Jean, an egocentric who dismisses love and how his disease challenges him to become a part of the world. Jean continues to live his life as he did before his HIV diagnosis — recklessly, aimlessly, uncaringly. But slowly, through the impact of the disease, Jean begins to find meaning in his life. Based on Collard’s autobiographical novel of the same title, Savage Nights is a distinctive voice in the new genre of AIDS-related narratives. AIDS becomes one of the aspects of his tangled life, but it is not the defining aspect. Like romantic literature’s use of tuberculosis, Collard’s use of AIDS has been noted for its backdrop purposes. Diseases each express themselves through their own languages and needs and more than any other film I can think of, Savage Nights expresses the dailiness of AIDS rather than its central drama. Jean still has to cope with one obsessed lover, another who might be turning a bit neo-fascist, questions of safe sex, frustrations with work, an inability to love, etc. AIDS and bisexuality are simply part of the story, not the story itself. The editing brashly uses jump cuts to cut between sequences, eliminating much of the psychology or motivation of how and why Jean acts as he does. It all becomes part of the swirl of his life. With believable, unmannered performances by all three key performers (and an uncredited cameo by Maria Schneider), these first and final glimpses of Collard as he plays Jean become all the more poignant.
This article appears in April 22 • 1994 (Cover).
