Possibly because it's not, actually, A Gay Film.
While most of the central characters happen to be gay, that's not what this French-Canadian film is all about.
The film deceives another way, too: at first sight, once you've got over it not being A Gay Film, it appears to be a simple family drama, a tiny piece about the relationships between mothers and their sons. But it's so much more than that: it's funny and exuberant and ebullient, and it has moments of such raw passion that they are almost unwatchable.
Full of teenage angst (the real sort, the sort where everyday domestic things somehow become more important than life and death itself), the gayness is just there, matter-of-fact, but never hidden. But that doesn't stop it featuring three of the most gorgeous actors I've recently seen.
The annoyingly talented writer/director/star is Xavier Dolan. I'll come back to him:
François Arnaud plays his boyfriend:
François Arnaud is extraordinarily, lickably lovely.
For reasons I'm not going to go into, Xavier Dolan abandons François Arnaud.
This is an act of insane folly. But, bizarrely, Xavier immediately finds Niels Schneider.
Who is also rather lovely.
Xavier Dolan, besides being annoyingly talented, is also pretty. His bee-stung lips are so implausibly puffy that I rather fancied using them as a pillow.
Er... I rather feel as if this review has got a bit off-track. I Killed my Mother went down a storm at Cannes last year, and it's very easy to see why.
Go and see it. You'll thank me. And possibly also Xavier Dolan.
2 comments:
Perhaps you've made unfortunate choices, LeDuc?!!!! Or I'm easy to please!
I've just returned from two films which I thought were at least good. 'Mississippi Damned' was outstanding on all sorts of levels and despite giving a bleak portrayal of life in rural Mississippi for black Americans (or are they now called African Americans?) and how difficult it is to escape its poverty and related problems. It's the 'biography' of the writer/director, a lesbian who managed to escape. The family is her family, the events real.
'The Last Summer of La Boyita', set in Argentina, shows the role of a young girl in the acceptance by a farm-boy of his sexuality. The girl and the mother of the boy are superbly played by amateur actors.
You may be right -- apparently the opening night film, a lesbian made-for-tv drama, was excellent.
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