Matthias & Maxime

Friends gather to celebrate life within secluded surroundings, artistic expression boldly reconstituting unspoken sublimated desire, an accord harmlessly struck, a shock recomposed endeavours, worst case in light of expectations, shy protests crafting haunts.

A return to urban routines, mild vast driven stoked responsibilities, one friend making ends meet in a bar, another focused on strict legalese.

Not that simple, neither cradled nor binary, distinct multiple clasped characterizations, intermingling nuanced intermediaries, conscious delegates a crew a neighbourhood.

Young adult cultural instinct, twenty something perspicacious reflexivity, not the fight like I've come to understand it, less jagged, less aggressive, less blunt.

A son struggles to take care of a parent who's recovering from drug addiction.

Lofty heights beckon as a visitor hails difference.

Lighthearted yet solemn and serious.

Exploration, presumption, discovery.

Matthias & Maxime, Xavier Dolan's latest, more in touch with something real, less volatile than Mommy or Tom à la ferme, but more impacting than Fin du monde or John F. Donovan.

I was hoping he'd make a film like this, a transition to something new, not that similar themes don't abound, it's just less wild, less chaotic, less psycho.

He does psycho well, but it started to seem like most of his films were going to be about nutters expressing themselves violently, so it's nice to see something laidback and chill, something relatable, something frisky, something calm.

It's not bourgeois by any means, although it has sure and steady elements, his characters still struggling to define themselves even if they aren't concerned with identity politics.

Exist is perhaps a better word, the film's concerned with thoughtful experimental existence, as threadbare as it is brisk and versatile, quite practical for something so imaginative.

I mean there aren't many bells and whistles, its sets more quotidian, less ornately endowed, characters spiritually composed and thriving in clever situations that don't overtly display intellect, don't draw attention to their value-added observations, just converse like they aren't trying to say something, the western character for example.

Matthias & Maxime (don't like the title) opens up fertile narrative ground that no other filmmaker is traversing, that can't be as easily criticized for being over the top, and requires more hands-on subtle innovations.

Still bet he could make one hell of a horror film.

Note: Québec could use more sci-fi.

It's great to watch films made by directors who care about their characters.

And work sympathy into their stories.

Introducing unexpected impulse.

Solid grizzled and gritty romanticism.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

A child reaches out to his favourite television star, and as fate would have it, he amicably responds.

Years later, transformed into an assertive young man, the fan discusses their correspondence with a none-too-keen reporter.

For something as innocent as a literary exchange, frail controversy abounds, the boy's life at school assailed, the star denying any involvement.

He was transitioning at the time to augmented cultured renown, replete with haywire strained theatrics, and their accompanying dis/enchantments.

As isolated feelings shocked and enervated, he became increasingly fraught and torn.

Both troubled penpals engage in heated exchanges with their mothers, youthful angst exploding, less dramatic knots unnerving.

Neither quite at home yet settled.

Pronounced and blunt misgivings.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan tills new mainstream ground, its innovative form both strength and weakness, as thought duels with emotive viscerals.

Impassioned feeling erupts at times, defined by aggrieved adolescence, and it makes an impact inasmuch as it startles, and critiques with unhinged fury.

These scenes aptly reflect wild destructive rage, and they make dismal embittered sense, and they're rarely encountered with such derisive vehemence, like sure sighted succinct storms.

When I think about the scenes, their style indeed seems quite well-chosen, especially if you've ever lost or seen someone lose your/their temper, and let loose vitriolic condemnation.

But they're a classic example of honest hands-on realism clashing with deceptive fantasy, insofar as the raw echoing sincerity doesn't fit the upscale production.

I can't criticize them for being histrionic because the situations they dispute are akin to exaggeration, but it's still discomforting to watch as they shriek and tantrum, and the poor mother looks on despondent.

Dolan's arguably a master of such scenes and it's nice to see they weren't held back, to see him workin' his style pseudo-studio, and I'm wondering if a rushed schedule left him directing in haste, because his more independent features capture such frenzies with ironic delicacy, and leave you overwhelmed with comatose disbelief.

A learning experience.

A stepping stone.

Who knows what happened here?

It's a cool enough story that's super melodramatic.

But the abrupt pace lacks the composure of his earlier work.

So it depends on how you like your melodrama.

I like refined melodramatic ridiculousness.

Missed the boat on John F. Donovan I'm afraid.

Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World)

A decade's shocks in wandering, discoveries, independence, success engrained skin dove, a career, applause, resentment, forgotten pastures, frigid climes, an author travels home for the first time in more than 10 years to visit his sheltered family, bewilderment and/or jealousy estranging their contentment, mom, sis, bro, conjugal aggression, imaginary constructs resonating with crisp tangible immediacy, actual conversations, evidence based yearning, but when people have been thinking about what to say for years they often do in fact say something, and if you're ill-prepared for their hypotheticals, your silence may seem bitterly bemused, like a question of authenticity, in an hypercritical emotional pound.

Lost at play.

Bullies betwitching.

Reminiscent of Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee but not quite there yet, although Xavier Dolan's touch makes Jean-Luc Lagarce's play (screenplay by Dolan) unreel like a lighter work of a criterion bound European composer, Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World) distances itself from Mommy et Tom à la ferme insofar as the potential for searing venomous outbursts wantonly branding like vehement scorched earth policies are stoically withheld till the end, as Louis (Gaspard Ulliel/William Boyce Blanchette/Emile Rondeau) theoretically transitions Dolan's texts into less sensational artistic realms.

The characteristic panic brought on by domineering feelings of inadequacy is still present, but rather than consistently disorienting throughout, it's patiently reserved for a wildly stubborn yet subdued expansion.

Each character has a private moment with Louis, loving tender cold reflective curious caustic revelatory pleading confused moments clad in nebulous joyful desperation, moving from obliviousness to uncertainty to understanding to contempt, Louis remaining frustratingly hesitant à la carte, wherein lies the film's brilliant delicacy.

No resolutions, no answers, less comment, not that they weren't there for the asking, there's just no way to get a word in edgewise.

Unfamiliarity.

Nerves.

Like a dishevelling enactment of acquiesced deterministic repression, Juste la fin keeps so much locked inside as its open wound penitently interpolate.

Driven to distraction and daydream.

Otherwise a pleasant afternoon.

Mommy

Heartbreaking confused insurgent rage pervades Xavier Dolan's Mommy, violently exploding in fits of uncontrollable wrath, volatile and destructive, furiously limited by social, familial, educational, and economic restraints.

But these outbursts liaise with the tenderest consoling spirited charms of a thoughtful caring bold youth hoping to find a way to fit in, unable to play any role besides King.

It's a brilliant fusion, truly brilliant, the best Canadian film I've seen, on par with the best cinema the international community has to offer, Arcand, Maddin, Egoyan, and Cronenberg have a genuine inheritor in Dolan, who's cultivating new ground for Canadian film, and living up to his potential.

Undeniable oscar calibre.

I don't write this lightly.

The youth's struggles are situated within a socio(a)political legal frame successfully supported by a direct honest account of his actions, to provocatively generate cogent debate, regarding individual freedoms, or the curtailment of one's liberties.

Steve Després (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is free.

Dolan beautifully captures his freedom again and again, twirling a shopping cart, smoking while preparing a meal, synthesizing the joyous and the manic, the sincere and the coerced, to present a less sadistic Clockwork Orange, set within impoverished circumstances, reason and madness aligned to contend.

He doesn't get the basics.

He cannot serve.

It's like he has the constitution of a viking warrior, devoted to his family, requiring constant battle, too undisciplined to acquire any plunder, too wild to learn how to begin.

Contemporary ancient emergence.

If only he played sports.

What a fearsome running back he could have been.

His mother's supportive struggles and practically ideal patience gradually break your heart, as incident after incident disintegrates her resolve, the scene where she dreams of his future, still producing genuine tears.

That scene's too well done, too well timed.

Too unfair.

Discourses of the beautiful, the psychological, the political, the mad, resplendently yet carnally united in a downtrodden brazen familial peace, an illustrious rampage, so delicate, so refined.

So crushing.

So free.

Controversial scenes.

Excellent soundtrack.

Still prefer Tarantino's soundtracks, but this is a good one.

Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm)

The importance of observing traditional checks and balances can be psychotically nurtured if oppressive horrific novelties ironically pasteurize love's volatile abandon.

To tenderly sympathize with incarnate cruelty is to harvest oneself a baleful dereliction.

A surprise can self-awarely compromise a narrative's prim and proper puerility if its imaginary facts have not been uniformly concentrated.

Awkward evasive perplexities.

Undisciplined counterstrikes, will be willfully punished even if their unexpected serenities instigate lasting calm.

Assuredly.

The madness associated with a cultural code's disavowed diversions creates sickeningly compelling bonds of trust in Xavier Dolan's brilliantly disturbing Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm), awestruck incredulous bereft terror, to submit, penalize, collapse, love's dedicated time honoured insurgencies, incomparably construct an orderly trespass.

There's no need to introduce his face firsthand, just driven concrete crazed malevolency.

Violently obscuring.

Before the resurrection of sound.

Editing by Xavier Dolan.

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.