Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats) (2010)

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writer:    Xavier Dolan
Cast:       Xavier Dolan, Monia Chokri, Niels Schneider
Language: French (Quebec)

The story of three close friends who are involved in a love triangle. That would seem like a very cliched story-line and going by the poster you can surmise that it involves two men and a lady. But the difference is that the object of desire is not the woman in it. The lady and one of the guys, who is gay, have a long term friendship. The middle guy in the poster is a new friend of theirs and both of them have a crush on him and they know that. They are not sure of his sexuality and so the film proceeds from there. 

That is a synopsis that would make you wonder why it took this long for someone to come up with such a story-line. Film is laugh out loud funny throughout. Dolan chose to make it in a cringe-comedy fashion as the camera just lingers on the faces of its two main protagonists as they get confused and humiliated over the course of the film. Film begins in documentary style with several people talking about their relationships and break-ups. It also comes up at several different points later in the film and Dolan uses it to pad up the film and also as an exposition tool. He makes it a point to have someone explain Kinsey's concept that sexuality can be classed into seven types starting from strictly hetero-sexual and ending with strictly homo-sexual. Going by recent scientific studies it seems that only few can be considered to be in the extreme ends of this spectrum. The interview like segments in the film had several funny ones in it. It serves as useful editing cuts and to signify passage of time as well in the main story but I thought it was kind of lazy film-making and was not really necessary in the film. 

The other two films (Mommy, Tom at the Farm) I have seen of Dolan's have been on the intense side and so the out and out comedy style of this film surprised me a bit, but in a pleasant manner. I had actually put off seeing it thinking that I would need to get in the right kind of mood to watch it. Great soundtrack is a given in his films and this one is not different. The recurring song in it is Dalida's Italian 'Bang Bang' song, YouTube video linked above, whose English version is familiar to me from Tarantino's 'Kill Bill'. Dolan was just 20 years old when he made this film and it got premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. Come to think of it, Bertolucci's 'Dreamers' is somewhat similar in terms of its three characters but that one had a looking from outside quality to it as the film was told from the perspective of the new one in the group of three and it was the siblings that stayed mysterious. And while watching Heartbeats, I thought the main two protagonists were siblings till around the middle of the film at which point it was made explicit that they were just friends. Anyway, it is a great watch and certainly much better than Dreamers. 

Rating: 4.5/5

Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm) (2013)

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writers:  Xavier Dolan, Michel Marc Bouchard
Cast:       Xavier Dolan, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Lisa Roy, Evelyne Brochu
Language: French

A young man (Xavier Dolan) travels to an isolated farm for his lover's funeral where he's quickly drawn into a twisted, sexually charged game by his lover's aggressive farmer brother (Pierre-Yves Cardinal). He learns that his lover's homosexuality is not known to the mother and the brother forces him to behave like a normal friend of her son in front of her. He also learns that the brother had also invented a girl-friend for his brother to please his mother and he is trying his level best to keep the facade going. As we progress in the film, we are not sure who is really the aggressor in this equation and more and more things are revealed about the household and the pariah status it enjoys within the community.

The film is adapted from a play by Michel Marc Bouchard, who also helped in writing the screenplay, and this is a sort of departure for Xavier Dolan who had made films out of his own original output up till this one. It is a film that you can get easily disappointed with if you try to pin it down to a particular genre. I had read some review headline which described it as a horror flick and the director also do some bits in it to class it as such. But I found it to be more of a mystery film with a heavy dose of black humor to it. I enjoyed it thoroughly and you will also do the same as long as you don't insist on it adhering to some genre conventions. It doesn't try to overly explain itself and you are free to interpret it any which way you want. The brother character turns out to be really endearing from my POV and his life must have been a really difficult one with his aggressive nature being a bi-product of his own ambiguous sexuality. 

Prior to this, I had only seen 'Mommy' from Dolan's filmography. It id difficult to believe that he is just 26 years old now. It seems some of the mixed reactions that his films get from critics is to do with them being conscious about his age. 'Tom At The Farm' was screened in the main competition section at the Venice Film Festival where it won the 'FIPRESCI' prize (Enterprising film-making). It is in French, like 'Mommy', as it is set in French speaking Quebec region of Canada. Dolan had cited Haneke's 'Funny Games' and 'Piano Teacher' as his favorites and you can see shades of those films in this one. I guess the best way to describe the film would be to something like that as well.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                                  

Mommy (2014)

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writer:    Xavier Dolan
Cast:       Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clement
Language: French

A widowed single mother, raising a violent son with ADHD alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household. The neighbor is also struggling and recovering from some emotional trouble, cause of which is not explained in the film, that has left her with speaking difficulties. She seems to be able to connect well with her neighbor's son and the interaction seems to help her in overcoming her difficulty in their presence. The film is set in French speaking part of Canada.

I had gone for my mother's hospital checkup two days back and in the waiting place we had interacted with a lady who had a 38-year old son having psychiatric problems after being subjected to hazing at college. So it was kind of kooky to watch 'Mommy' next, which also deals with a similar subject matter even though in the film Steve's troubles begin when his father dies and the family starts facing financial difficulties. At the beginning of the film, his mother takes him home from a correctional facility after him having burnt down the cafeteria causing injury to others. To make matters worse she loses her job. The film starts with a narrow aspect ratio of 1:1, a square,  and I was wondering whether it was a problem with the print that I was watching. It is intentional and when the family starts interacting with the neighbor and all of them becomes kind of happy, we get a scene where Steve is skating with his two mommies listening to Oasis' Wonderwall' in background, and he literally pulls the frame wide into a normal aspect ratio to indicate the mood at that point of time. It again goes back to 1:1 when his mother gets a court notice seeking damages related to his cafeteria burning incident. Towards the end of the film, there is a sequence where they have gone for a picnic and Steve's mom visualizes an alternative reality for them with Steve leading a normal life. The frame again widens and the sequence, set to some stunning background score, reminded me of a similar one from Spike Lee's '25th Hour'. I should watch that one again soon. 

With films like Mommy, the course that the story takes can be very predictable, with it either being a 'feel good' one or a 'feel worse' one. I did fear it taking 'Rain Man' route when it comes to ending but it did surprise me there even though the outcome is the same. So whether a film works or not despite being predictable depends on how well you connect to the characters and this film certainly did that for me. I was so transfixed that I sat through the end credits which was set to Lana Del Rey's 'Born to Die', an excellent choice. 

Overall it is  a great watch with excellent performances from the three leading characters. It was part of Official selection for Palme d'Or at Cannes where it won the Jury prize. I haven't seen any other films from Xavier Dolan, who at the age of 25 have already made five feature length films. Mommy is considered as his best work so far. His first film, I Killed My Mother, is supposed to be semi-autobiographical with him starring as a homosexual at odds with his mother.

Rating: 4.5/5