Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats)

Orchestrating his coordinated artistic skill while saturating it with an intuitively insightful sensibility, Xavier Dolan's second feature film Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats) agilely elevates romantic suffering. Nothing's worse than being in love, and Francis (Xavier Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri) have both fallen for the free-spirited Nicolas (Niels Schneider) and his characteristic seductive charm. They buy him gifts, praise his foresight, eagerly anticipate each and every encounter, and will quickly change their plans in order to indulge his slightest whim. But Nicolas doesn't get it, or doesn't care at least, and can't find it in his heart to simply set up relationships with both of them so that things can get better before they get worse. The enduring friendship forged between Francis and Marie deteriorates as a consequence and jealous motivations extricate their cohesive bond.

I heard Dolan's still a teenager and can't believe that someone that young is capable of pulling off a film with this much presence. His timing's thoughtful, the variety of different shots and situations playfully curious, some of the songs he chooses reminded me of choices made by Tarantino (spellbinding ingratiating novel works which imbue the corresponding setting with a quasi-mythical quality [although Dolan uses Sheila's "Bang Bang" to often]), and the situations presented are plausible enough. I would have liked to have seen more spur-of-the-moment shots of the surrounding scenery but there are quite a few nonetheless including the sudden introduction and disappearance of a cat. If Xavier is really still a teenager, and he doesn't become to commercial with the passage of time (although many prominent directors work well within the commercial system, Christopher Nolan's Inception for instance), and he continues to critically and prolifically cultivate his art, he could become a prominent auteur and be mentioned in the same breath as Almodóvar or Godard. He has serious potential and the temperament to back it up and I look forward to seeing J'ai tué ma mère hopefully sooner than later.