Savage Nights

Savage Nights is a 1992 French drama film directed and written by Cyril Collard. It stars Collard, Romane Bohringer, and Carlos López. The film is an adaptation of Collard's semi-autobiographical novel Les Nuits Fauves, published in 1989. It won four César Awards, including Best Film. Plot “I feel I go through life like an American tourist, doing as many towns as possible", explains Jean, a camera man and aspiring film director. Handsome but self-centered, childish, and hedonistic, he has a complicated sex life. He is bisexual and HIV positive. During a casting session he meets Laura, a lively, eighteen-year-old aspiring actress. Captivated by her charm, Jean soon is pursuing her and she quickly falls in love with him. They start a passionate affair. At the same time, the restless Jean pursues a relationship with Samy, a young rugby player. Samy, who has emigrated with his mother and brother from Spain, is unemployed and equally troubled. He is straight and although living with his girlfriend, Marianne, he has no qualms about his homoerotic relationship with Jean, who has a big crush on him. Jean and Laura's relationship is complicated by him having HIV which initially he hides from her. Only after they have had sex does he tell her. At first, Laura is furious and her mother is equally livid. However, Laura is by then deeply in love with Jean. She not only continues the relationship but refuses to use condoms as Jean wanted. Jean is also deeply troubled in accepting his disease. "Drop your illusions. Learn from your disease" suggests his friend Noria. Peaceful acceptance does not come easy for him, his life ricochets from one coupling to the next, trying to make sense of his situation. He is a damned rebel, which he defines as "Someone marked by fate and with real dignity inside".