N'oublie pas que tu vas mourir

Xavier Beauvois won admirers for Nord, his memorable debut; here, in his even better and more unsettling follow-up, he plays an art student whose desperate attempts to avoid military service reveal that he's HIV positive, whereupon he begins systematically to immerse himself in the realm of the senses. Despite a finished technique, there's a rawness here - evident not only in the explicit scenes of sex and drugs, but in the dark, edgy humour that repeatedly and unexpectedly bubbles to the surface - that lends the film an emotional punch. Great performances and a strong John Cale score.