I make no apology for repeating something I opined in my
review for Laurence Always (2012) that I could
not help but marvel at Xavier Dolan’s undeniable
filmmaking skill, a young man of immense and unique talent. I went on to state
that he is the best-unknown film director working in the movie industry at
present and that hopefully his latest and fifth feature film Mommy (2014) would have brought him the attention he so
obviously deserves. I can say without doubt that this young man has not made a
bad film to date and his fourth film, the only one of his films I had not seen
so far, was certainly no reason to change my opinion.
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| The Funeral reveals the characters involved. |
Described as a psychological thriller, Dolan has
adapted an original play by playwright Michel Marc Bouchard and takes the title
role in Tom at the Farm (2013) as well as directing, producing and
editing. This strangely hypnotic and mature drama is about a young advertising
copywriter from the big city who travels to an isolated farm for the funeral of
his lover Guillaume. When he arrives at the farm he is shocked to find out that
Guillaume’s family, brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) and doting mother
Agathe (Lise Roy), has no idea who he is or any thing about his relationship
with the deceased. Right from the start it’s the menacing Francis that attempts
to control the situation by his bullying of Tom, forcing him to deny his
sexuality in front of Agathe and lie about her sons true sexual identity even
going as far as to invite Guillaume’s co-worker Sara (Evelyne Brochu) to visit
the farm to pretend to have been his girlfriend. The narrative gets even darker
when Tom discovers why the local town folk will not go anywhere near the farm.
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| Should he go or should he stay? |
This intriguing movie sets out to illustrate the
gap between the lifestyle and liberal attitudes of city dweller Tom, and
Francis, a social outcast who is rotting away in the isolation of his country
setting in rural Quebec. Dolans writing
and direction lead us in to the dark areas of the human kind like sadness and
grief along side hostility, lies, deceit and violence all played out with the
minimum of actors, a fact that takes away nothing from this well played acutely
poignant and emotional adaptation. Xavier Dolan’s latest movie Its Only the End of the World is due for
release in 2016.
‘What we don’t know will hurt us’[1]
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