The Films of Xavier Dolan

[Rhylliam]

Canada really hasn't had all that much in the way of well-produced films these past few years. Pieces like 'Score: The Musical', 'Breakaway' and 'Gunless' plus unfortunately 'Passchendaele' seem to be the best that English speaking Canada has produced recently. David Cronenberg has passed his prime, but he is at least still producing new stuff. Paul Gross I just don't have much faith in, but his feature 'Hyena Road' does look somewhat promising. Sure there are plenty of more independent films out there, like 'A Little Bit Zombie', but they're far too cheaply made and campy to really be enjoyed by masses. 'Passchendaele' cost approx. $20 million to make, and since it performed very poorly across the board financially as well as critically, it kind of sealed the fate for any more expensive films to be produced in the country. I'm not trying to crap on Canadian films, I'm just not pleased with the directions the English-speaking portion has gone. I truly wish we had a bigger industry here. Thankfully, plenty of US productions shoot across Canada and are able to keep our industries going, but its not enough. Anyways, those films from Canada lately that have been rather good, have come out of Quebec. There are a lot of garbage films to come out of Quebec as well, mainly their comedies, so I'm not claiming its all gold haha. Denis Villeneuve has now moved into US productions since both 'Polytechnique' & 'Incendies' were well received. Jean-Marc Vallée had great success with 'C.R.A.Z.Y' & 'Cafe de flore' and has since had more success with 'Dallas Buyers Club'.

One new shining light coming out of Quebec is surely Xavier Dolan. Currently, he has made 5 feature length films and is only 26 years old. His 1st feature he wrote when he was 16 and filmed it when he was 19/20. This is a rarity of course, but from what he has produced so far, its pretty clear that if he continues to crank out films he has a VERY promising future. He's content with staying occupied, and isn't showing any signs of stopping. His next feature 'Its Only the End of the World' attracted a fine cast, and I cannot wait to check it out. The 1st film of his I saw was 'Mommy', after blind buying it. Its quite unique, and features a great soundtrack to compliment the fantastic 1:1 to 1.85:1 ratio images. I had to check out his other films ASAP. So last weekend I watched both 'Laurence Anyways' and 'Tom at the Farm', which were both entertaining and interesting, and much like 'Mommy', they both played with aspect ratios. This weekend I watched his earlier 'J'ai tué ma mère' and 'Les Amours imaginaires'. The former was a great 1st feature, and deserved the praise it got, while the latter was well produced but not quite his finest of the 5 so far. Anyways, for those genuinely interested in Canadian film and especially independent film need to check him out. The majority of these, with the exception of 'Mommy', do deal with homosexual subjects etc., and Dolan himself is gay. That being said, these aren't films geared towards homosexuals, and mainly deal with love and the difficulty of attaining it, among other things. All truthful, all dealing with realistic subjects, and are well composed from start to finish.

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