Mommy.

The latest work from Xavier Dolan was shown at the 2015 Glasgow Film Festival and confirmed why I now consider the Canadian born actor, writer and director one of the best young modern filmmakers and has certainly become a favourite of Movie Ramble. Shot on 35mm film stock and presented in the narrow 1:1 aspect for most of the film, Mommy (2014) returns to the mother and son relationship first tackled in his debut film I Killed My Mother (2009) in which he manages to present us with a semi biographical drama about the complications of such a relationship. It again stars the absolutely brilliant French-Canadian actress Anne Dorval in the lead role of Diane Despres.

 

Anna Dorval as Mommy of the title.

Mental illness and domestic distress are the foundations for this exceptional study of a three way human relationship. Diane is a widow whose hyperactive son Steve (Antoine-Oliver Pilon) is expelled from the institution he has been kept in since the death of his father when he became uncontrollable. When he returns home mother is overwhelmed by the task of looking after her wayward son, having enough problems looking after herself, the relationship proves to be emotionally stormy. But fortunately Diane befriends their new tongue-tied neighbour Kyla (Suzanne Clement) who turns out to be just what the relationship required. 

 

I challenge you not to have an empathy with the three main characters.

The film, which won the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, focuses on character, allowing its audience to empathies with all three of the main protagonists and never forcing you to judge them. A piece of cinematic work that has true emotional depth and like the rest of the directors oeuvre it’s has cleverly written dialog and a great sense of humour. Dolan also provides us with an accomplished soundtrack that includes the likes of Counting Crows, Oasis and Beck. All three main leads give top class performances but Anne Dorval deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her astonishing performance. A tender humorous movie that deserves to be widely seen but only has a selected release in UK cinemas: why?   

Laurence Anyways.

Transsexualism is a feeling of identification with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their assigned sex. For example where a persons assigned sex at birth conflicts with their psychological gender. Which is much different from what is referred to as transvestic fetishism a name given to those who are thought to have an excessive sexual or erotic interest in cross-dressing. Xavier Dolan’s third feature film after I Killed My Mother (2009) and Heartbeats (2010) is about the former. Laurence Anyways (2012) deals with a couple who are very much in love but are going through a enormous change, the male has disclosed that he has always felt more like a female than a man.

Laurence Ali is a 34-year-old teacher, an intelligent gentle man who is very much in love with Frederique Belair and has no desire that their loving relationship should end. But he always felt that his gender was an accident of birth and see’s himself as a man aging in the skin of a woman. Something that has been driving Laurence Ali insane since he was eight years old when he first started to dress as a young girl, something that has carried forward into his adult life. It has come to a point where he wants to go through the transformation, and 'come out' as a female, with the help of hormones his body can slowly change shape and in due course he can have a sexual reversal operation.

From this rather revolution disclosure Dolan's camera follow’s the couple and we discover how they manage to deal with such a traumatic experience. What affects will Laurence’s decision have on them and will being in love be enough to save their relationship or will it  

turn both their lives upside down. Do they both have transsexual traits; will the relationship work if they both exchange genders? A great touch was giving the leading lady a male name! It’s obvious that Fred is happy to live on the edge of 'normal' society and that the change will give Laurence a sense of relief but Fred feels she is loosing her identity, a sense of delayed shock perhaps or maybe she does not realise how much it's affecting her. 

 

The wonderfully talented Suzanna Clement plays Fred. 

Xavier Dolan always intended to make this film even before his first two releases, but in the end had to wait three years before the camera’s finally rolled on this excellent piece of storytelling. Dolan had total control with everything planned, the great music, the editing, the beautifully composed camera work and how the actors should perform, a formula that is swiftly becoming this French-Canadian’s trademark. He also uses a similar cast in each of his movies, which brings continuity to his filmmaking.  The film features one of his regular actresses Suzanne Clement, from whom he extracts a fantastic emotive performance as Fred. Laurence is equally as well portrayed by the wonderful Melvil Poupaud, the more female his character gets the more you except him. Nathalie Baye is Laurence’s mother Julienne with another Dolan regular Monia Chokri as Fred’s sister Stefie and there’s even a small part for Anne Dorval.

 

Such a good looking couple. 

I can’t help but marvel at Xavier Dolan’s undeniable filmmaking skill, he must never compromises his unique talent and I would state that he is the best-unknown film director working in the movie industry at present. Hopefully his latest film Mommy (2014) will bring him the attention he so obviously deserves. I can say without doubt that this young man has not made a bad film to date. Most deal with what could be described by some as taboo subjects, with Dolan things that could be conceived as different, are treated as normal in such a way that the audience are invited to treat the subject the same way. Transsexuality is never an easy subject but films like this can broaden the outlook of a society that still in many ways does not except people of differing sexual preferences. The film is set in the 80's and 90's and we can see quite clearly how things have not changed that much!

I Killed My Mother.

To direct, write, produce and star in your debut feature film at the age of nineteen is a great achievement in its self but to make one as accomplished and as honest as I Killed My Mother (2009) is a rarity. Xavier Dolan manages to present us with a semi biographical drama about the complications of a mother son relationship. How a son can love his mother without actually liking her. Dolan plays Hubert Minel a very defiant sixteen student who has been raised by his single mother Chantale (the wonderful Anne Dorval) since his father deserted them when Hubert was just seven years old. As Hubert got older he has learned to hate his mother and the pair bicker all the time - going as far as telling his teacher that she is dead! When Ms Cloutier (Suzanna Clement) finds out this is not true she accuses Hubert of killing his mother! The mother/son relationship gets somewhat worse when Chantale finds out from Hubert’s boyfriends mother that her son is gay. Consulting with her estranged husband its decided to send their son to a Catholic boarding school an action that in fact widens the gulf between Chantale and Hubert.

 

The mother.

The son.

The mother - son relationship.

This deeply felt expose of the complexity of a mother and son relationship is obviously not rare but to see it portrayed with such understanding is a testament to Dolan’s own experiences. Although the movie did not have a general release in the UK, only screened at Film Festivals, it did however attract a great deal of international press attention when it quite rightly won three awards at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where it received an eight minute standing ovation. With its imaginative camera work, its cleverly written dialog and its sense of underlying humour, which Dolan used again as the template for his next film Heartbeats (2010), its an entertainingly enjoyable movie  His latest movie is Mommy (2014) which again stars Anne Dorval as a single mother and is due to be shown at the London Film Festival in October, following that we can only hope it will get a general release?