Xavier Dolan
Dolan Out the Charm: What I’ve Been Writing
In a feeble effort to make this the one stop place for my writing, I’ve come here to update you on some of my stuffs.
Firstly, I’ve been writing a lot about my new favorite filmmaker Xavier Dolan of late.
Over at IndieWire’s /Bent Blog, I wrote about the roles of mothers in his films.
The pet preoccupation of young Quebecois filmmaker Xavier Dolan is not, at first glance, particularly interesting. Mothers. Alright, someone says, he has mommy issues. But the issue runs far deeper than writing it off so dismissively. For Dolan, as a queer filmmaker, uses his experience, position, and talent to explore mothers with atypical approaches. The divide between a mother and their queer child is also nothing particularly new, but, for at least I Killed My Mother and Laurence Anyways, his maternal characters transcend the roles given to them to become much more.
– All About His Mothers: The Role of Mothers in the Films of Xavier Dolan
Over at Movie Mezzanine, I examine obsessive love in Dolan’s Heartbeats via Dalida’s “Bang Bang” and The Knife’s “Pass This On”.
It’s intoxicating. It has the power to the make someone do things out of the ordinary. It augments and manipulates the experience of living. Deep infatuation. Few films are able to pin that experience so accurately as Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats, a hyper stylistic, elegant piece of filmmaking about two friends who fall in “love” with the same guy. Dolan is able to articulate the spellbinding effect that infatuation has on the two characters through the use of two songs, “Bang Bang”, describing the competition between Francis and Marie, and “Pass This On”, depicting the obsessive nature of their infatuation. Carefully utilized in the film and played nearly consecutively, Dolan nails what it’s like to be obsessively enamored.
Love, Ostentatiously: The Obsessive Infatuation of “Bang Bang” and “Pass This On” in Heartbeats
And recently, I just had the fortune to see Dolan’s fourth film, Tom at the Farm. And I’m seeing it again this week, because that’s how I roll. And he’ll be there in person. (Yes, I realize I’m linking to a post that was already on this blog, but, I thought it made sense regardless.)
It’s hard to describe 25 year old Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner Xavier Dolan as anything but a wunderkind, even if you dislike his work. The rate of output, for one, is impressive, but the products themselves are astonishing. But what happens when an art house enfant terrible steps away from his comfort zone to deliver a straight (or, rather, queer) psychological thriller? Certainly one of the most outstanding, heart racing experiences I’ve had at the theater in ages.
I’ve also been doing other work, such as…
At IndieWire’s /Bent Blog, I watched queer romcoms and came up with the best and the worst.
Queer films often get ghettoized to a point where if you aren’t actively looking for them, you probably won’t see them in the spotlight, not unlike looking for an original cast recording of Company. You have your once in a while bursts of recognition, like Brokeback Mountain or Milk, but queer romantic comedies specifically almost never see the light of day outside of either your indie theater, your LGBT film festival, the Gay and Lesbian section on Netflix, or that unfortunate friend who actively decided to buy Were the World Mine on DVD. But why is it that way, beyond the obvious reasons of heteronormativity in mainstream media? So, I took it upon myself to plop onto my bed with my tub of ice cream, my stone cold bitch face, and my Netflix account to explore all that could technically qualify as a queer romantic comedy on Netflix, coming up with a personal 5 best, and a personal five worst.
Here are the Best 5 LGBT Romcoms on Netflix.
And here are the Worst LGBT Romcoms on Netflix
Will be back later to add more stuff I’ve written lately.
Animal Farm: Tom at the Farm
It’s hard to describe 25 year old Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner Xavier Dolan as anything but a wunderkind, even if you dislike his work. The rate of output, for one, is impressive, but the products themselves are astonishing. But what happens when an art house enfant terrible steps away from his comfort zone to deliver a straight (or, rather, queer) psychological thriller? Certainly one of the most outstanding, heart racing experiences I’ve had at the theater in ages.
So in Love: Heartbeats
“He seduces you,” says one corner of the cinematic triangle of Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats, referring to another corner. There are plenty of films about love, friendship, and love and friendship, but Dolan’s second film, about two friends in love with the same guy, does an impressive thing that few of those films can do: articulate the exact feelings of love and heartbreak through cinematic form. Several films capture moments of love, perhaps even recreate scenes easily identifiable, but the actual emotion itself is hard to render. Wordless, invisible feelings are rendered nearly tangible and very palpable on the screen. The film seems to bleed emotion.
My 13 Favorite Films of 2013
I’ve already made two lists this year (one with superlatives and one with three films I never need to see again), but I made another one because masochism is the new black.
Here are my 13 Favorite Films from 2013:
Kyle’s Superlative Year in Film: 2013 Edition at The Moviola
I realized it was almost the end of the year about a week and a half ago. And I began to panic. Little beads of sweat began to form on my forehead as I looked at the list of films I still had to watch. My original plan was to cram as many as I could before making my year end list. But, after some advice from a Twitter friend, I decided, “Eh, I’ve more than made my quota, I can take it easy and watch what I want to watch now.” By quota, I mean by my Masochist Quota. Because I feel like I’m always playing catch up with every other cinephile out there, I feel the incredibly masochistic need to watch at least 365 films a year. And watching that many (usually more) drains a person. (I’ve hit 516 films so far, not including rewatches.) I don’t have my license, so I don’t see that many 2013 films. I mostly see rep and archival stuff via Netflix, my library, etc. But this year, I did see a bit more. While I believe I have enough to make a reasonable top ten list, I decided to do something else. Silly superlatives! It’s more fun, a little more unorthodox, and does not require sleepless nights and valium pills to get me through eighteen other films I still had to watch.
Read on at The Moviola for my List of Film Superlatives for 2013!
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