Les nuits fauves (1992)

Jean is young, gay, and promiscuous. Only after he meets one or two women, including Laura does he come to realize his bisexuality. Jean has to overcome a personal crisis (he is ... See full summary »

Director:

Cyril Collard

Writers:

Cyril Collard, Jacques Fieschi (adaptation)

Stars:

Cyril Collard, Romane Bohringer, Carlos López

7 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Cyril Collard	...	Jean
Romane Bohringer	...	Laura
Carlos López	...	Samy
Corine Blue	...	Laura's Mother
Claude Winter	...	Jean's Mother
René-Marc Bini	...	Marc
Maria Schneider	...	Noria
Clémentine Célarié	...	Marianne
Laura Favali	...	Karine
Denis D'Arcangelo	...	Singer
Jean-Jacques Jauffret	...	Pierre Olivier
Aïssa Djabri	...	Kader
Francisco Giménez	...	Paco
Marine Delterme	...	Sylvie
Yannick Tolila	...	Nurse

Storyline

Jean is young, gay, and promiscuous. Only after he meets one or two women, including Laura does he come to realize his bisexuality. Jean has to overcome a personal crisis (he is HIV-positive) and a tough choice between Laura and his male lover Samy.

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Plot Keywords:

bisexual | gay | love | violence | homosexual | 

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Details

Country:

France Italy

Language:

French Spanish

Release Date:

25 February 1994 (USA)

Also Known As:

Savage Nights

Filming Locations:

Cabo Espichel, Sesimbra, Setúbal, Portugal

Box Office

Gross:

$662,341 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Banfilm, La Sept Cinéma, Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

126 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first film to win Best Film and Best First Film at the French equivalent of the Oscars, the Cesars. Unfortunately the film's director, Cyril Collard, didn't live to see his double win, succumbing to AIDS three days before the ceremony.

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Connections

Referenced in Bad Company (1999)

User Reviews

The Savage Nights

"Les nuits fauves" is one of the most honest films I have ever seen about human condition and one of the aspects of our sexuality. For a start, the depiction of ambisexuality is quite sincere, showing the suffering this ambiguous sexual behavior (considered an orientation, in spite of its apparent lack of direction) brings to people really involved or in love with the so-called bisexual entity who feels attracted to both men and women. The motion picture is not fiction or a bad joke, but mainly facts based on Cyril Collard's own life, who infected the woman he was involved with (played here by Romane Bohringer), knowing he was HIV-positive. First came the revelation through the novel of the same title, and then the film, in which he played his own part because no French actor even considered to play it, finding it too risky for their careers. Collard plays himself apparently as he was: a vain, irresponsible, hedonistic strong case of satyriasis (the male counterpart for female erotic mania), and thanks for his daring to show his lifestyle, his passions and his mistakes, at least he left a starting point for open-minded partners to discuss a subject that may be affecting their relationships. It is a film as hard and bleak as Wong Kar-Wai's "Happy Together", but both are necessary. There is time for "To Wong Foo" and for "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"; there is even time for explicitness. But there should be also time for putting moralistic judgment aside, and watch and talk about dramas that show aspects of our condition that we tend to trivialize or deny, and that may make unhappy the persons we love. Five days after Cyril Collard died, "Les nuits fauves" won the César (France's top film prize) for Best Film, Best First Work, Best Film Editing and Best Female Newcomer (Miss Bohringer, who three years later played again the "victim" of two men in love: Leonardo DiCaprio and David Thewlis, as Rimbaud and Verlaine, in Total Eclipse). Collard's motion picture also won the Audience Award, the International Film Critics Prize and the Special Jury Prize at the Festival of Young Cinema, in Torino, Italy.