Mommy (15.)
Directed by Xavier Dolan.
Starring Anne Dorval, Antione-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clement, Patrick Huard and Alexandre Goyette. 139 mins. French with subtitles.
Mommy really lays it all out for you in its first scene. From the vantage point of the front seat of the following car we see a car crash at a junction. After being blind sided, Die (Dorval) clambers out of the wreckage and gives gobfuls of abuse to the driver that hit her. So there's your opening metaphor. Die is a widow in her late 40s who is defiantly trying to cope with her destructive teenage son Steve (Pilon) who has ADHD. It is a trap that is being explored here and the trap is maternal love, the one you can't chose the one you can't get out of.
Aside from neatly encapsulating the title character, her situation and the tone of the whole film, the real significance of the scene though is that it is probably the only time the viewer has any distance from the action. Mommy isn't just heart on the sleeve, it is rage, desire, anger on the sleeve. There is no restraint, it just surges out in an unstoppable 139 minute burst. And just to keep all this emotion that bit more concentrated it is boxed up. The film is shot in a square 1:1 ratio and is made up almost entirely of close ups or at least fairly tight shots of people. It is intense, beautiful to look at and charmingly contrary – the story is bleak but the images are boundless optimistic.
Such a style places greater than usual strain on the actors. They can't hide. The central mother and son are forcefully played by Dorval and Pilon but the movie squeezes them dry. Only Suzanne Clement as Kyla, the neighbour who becomes entwined in their story gets to keep any mystery. A mousy looking former school teacher who you assume will be the complaining, conventional, stuffy neighbour. Kyla has some ill defined speech impediment that seems to come and in and out like the reception on an old long-wave radio. Clement's performance as this enigmatic figure is really exceptional; you never work out what her motivation is, why she is putting herself through this but you never doubt her and she takes the film to another level.
Canadian writer/ director Dolan is something of a prodigy. Still just 26 he already has five features to his name. “Bold” hardly does him or his film justice though the more you watch the more you may wonder if there isn't something fairly conventional lurking within its boxed contrariness. The plucky single mother, the misunderstood youth, the dramatic confrontation that forges the understanding between Kyla and Steve: it's almost Oscar pleader territory. Watching this feature initially you may think that this is what a Godard film might look like if Godard still had an interest in making films about people. As it goes on that might shift to this is what a Godard film might look like if Godard made Terms of Endearment.
Mommy (15.)
Directed by Xavier Dolan.
Starring Anne Dorval, Antione-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clement, Patrick Huard and Alexandre Goyette. 139 mins. French with subtitles.
Mommy really lays it all out for you in its first scene. From the vantage point of the front seat of the following car we see a car crash at a junction. After being blind sided, Die (Dorval) clambers out of the wreckage and gives gobfuls of abuse to the driver that hit her. So there's your opening metaphor. Die is a widow in her late 40s who is defiantly trying to cope with her destructive teenage son Steve (Pilon) who has ADHD. It is a trap that is being explored here and the trap is maternal love, the one you can't chose the one you can't get out of.
Aside from neatly encapsulating the title character, her situation and the tone of the whole film, the real significance of the scene though is that it is probably the only time the viewer has any distance from the action. Mommy isn't just heart on the sleeve, it is rage, desire, anger on the sleeve. There is no restraint, it just surges out in an unstoppable 139 minute burst. And just to keep all this emotion that bit more concentrated it is boxed up. The film is shot in a square 1:1 ratio and is made up almost entirely of close ups or at least fairly tight shots of people. It is intense, beautiful to look at and charmingly contrary – the story is bleak but the images are boundless optimistic.
Such a style places greater than usual strain on the actors. They can't hide. The central mother and son are forcefully played by Dorval and Pilon but the movie squeezes them dry. Only Suzanne Clement as Kyla, the neighbour who becomes entwined in their story gets to keep any mystery. A mousy looking former school teacher who you assume will be the complaining, conventional, stuffy neighbour. Kyla has some ill defined speech impediment that seems to come and in and out like the reception on an old long-wave radio. Clement's performance as this enigmatic figure is really exceptional; you never work out what her motivation is, why she is putting herself through this but you never doubt her and she takes the film to another level.
Canadian writer/ director Dolan is something of a prodigy. Still just 26 he already has five features to his name. “Bold” hardly does him or his film justice though the more you watch the more you may wonder if there isn't something fairly conventional lurking within its boxed contrariness. The plucky single mother, the misunderstood youth, the dramatic confrontation that forges the understanding between Kyla and Steve: it's almost Oscar pleader territory. Watching this feature initially you may think that this is what a Godard film might look like if Godard still had an interest in making films about people. As it goes on that might shift to this is what a Godard film might look like if Godard made Terms of Endearment.
