Making bodies and worlds

Abstract

Inspired by the intense affective experience of watching the film 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute/Battements par minute) (Robin Campillo, 2017) about the HIV/ AIDS activist group ACT UP Paris, I turn to affect theory to better understand how the film did what it did, tracing the circulating emotions of joy, anger, love, sadness, frustration, and exhilaration among the protagonists on screen, between the screen and the audience, and among the audience. I argue that the film’s affective economy has a religious quality in the way it creates bodies, worlds, and communities, and more specifically, that these religious sensibilities resonate with Christian affectivities in all their complexity. Thus, my argument about the religious affects of 120 BPM also contributes to the reflection on the affective dimensions of Christianity, and religion more broadly, and on the religious dimensions of affective-embodied aesthetic experiences.