Couet and Nambot are slender, nice- but not extraordinary-looking twentysomethings who are very believable in their roles, but most of all have a chemistry that makes you wonder how much of their romantic attraction is acting. Enormous credit, though, must also go to the casting and performances of the two actors. “I want to live against it.” With dialogue like this, “Paris 05:59” conjures a world and a moment in time, and it does so with an understated skill throughout. I don’t want to live with it,” Hugo notes somewhat morosely. “People tell me to learn to live with AIDS. The key here is an attraction that looks from the very first like love, and the film conveys its growth-amid difficulties like those just noted-both delicately and persuasively. The remainder of the film follows the guys as they wend their way homeward and basically try to decide if they want this new relationship to last more than this one night or not. As much as this solution seems viable, it doesn’t banish the tension and mistrust that have emerged between the men since Hugo dropped his bombshell. Nevertheless the doctor advises his undergoing the currently standard morning-after treatment, which involves taking pills for 28 days. In this scene it’s noted that the chances of Theo contracting HIV from that single encounter are less than one percent.
But Hugo follows him and, at the hospital, they see the doctor together. Theo says he doesn’t want Hugo to accompany him and sets off on his own.
An AIDS hotline they call advises going to a hospital right away. He says he’s on meds and his viral load is negligible, but that doesn’t keep Theo from freaking out. Hugo admits he had an orgasm inside Theo without using a condom, and he’s HIV+. The emotional up comes crashing down, though, when they stop riding and start recalling what happened at the club. The conversation contains its own intoxication, as the two guys begin discussing their carnal but also more-than-carnal attraction to each other. Recalling not only Varda but also Godard, Rivette and other directors who’ve made visual love to Paris using mobile cameras and high-speed film stocks, this bicycling passage has a lyrical exhilaration in its breathless rush through the beautiful city’s empty pre-dawn streets. Theo ( Geoffrey Couet), who has short brown curly hair, and Hugo (Francois Nabmot), with straight dark hair, start out getting rent-a-bikes and talking exultantly as they wheel through the city. Referencing Agnes Varda’s New Wave classic “Cleo from 5 to 7,” “Paris 05:59” follows the two young guys in real time from the moment they leave the sex club, shortly after 4:30 a.m., till the minute given in the title.
They are not simply lustful looks but seem to suggest something more. That story, in fact, is announced and begun in the sex scene, with the looks exchanged between the two guys. The other is that it’s not an end unto itself but a set-up for the story that follows. One is that it is very artfully filmed and doesn’t include close-ups of genitals. There are two things, though, that set it apart from most pornography. It should be noted that this scene is hardcore, meaning it contains erect penises and sex acts that are shown explicitly.