“Live, die, be reborn”, too good to be true – Libération

Evoking the AIDS years through a love triangle torn apart by the disease, Gaël Morel’s film is full of compassion and charm.

The title of Gaël Morel’s latest film, To live, to die, to be reborn, may recall that of To please, to love, to run fast by Christophe Honoré. Another evocation of the AIDS years, another hurried formula to represent the vital emergency, the principle of a “every man for himself love” with death on their heels. It’s within a loving trio that it happens, a favorite combination in fiction for its dynamism, and that the plot takes the time to unfold over ten years. Emma is in a relationship with Samy, bisexual, who begins an affair with their friend Cyril, a young successful photographer, met on the landing of their Parisian apartment. The three have in common that they love each other, therefore, and invent an unconventional family around a child to die for. Then they turn out to be dying, infected with HIV. Gaël Morel signs one of those blue-jean films that would dream of putting the 90s in a vial, and that we attach to them the quality of “whirlwind films” (of life).

It consists first of all in getting drunk on partying, sweetness and pleasures, to better conquer us with the fates of characters transcribed at full volume. The risk is to give in to excess imagery and to stick on