"I KILLED MY MOTHER"
Director: Xavier Dolan
Trevor's Rating: 5 / 5 Stars

How did 20 year-old director, writer, and star of J'ai Tué Ma Mère (I Killed My Mother) Xavier Dolan do it? No really: How did someone so young accomplish something so sophisticated? That is the question I am dying to ask after seeing the screening of this incredible film at Frameline this year. When the French-Canadian Dolan premiered this film at Cannes, it made quite a splash -- and rightly so. The film tells the tumultuous story of the relationship between Hubert and his single mother, Chantale (played by the exquisite Anne Dorval). The film opens to a close-up shot of his mother eating a bagel with cream cheese in slow-motion -- a shot that eerily reminded me of my inability to eat breakfast with my father in the morning. His slurp-crunch cereal eating used to drive me batshit crazy as a teenager. What ensues is something of a study in how to inflict injury with words -- and it is just as gory as any slasher film.

The film is, at times, rather painful to watch. Hubert is a real teenage brat, and Dolan plays him beautifully. A real son-of-a-bitch ingrate. But he's damn handsome and there's something incredibly charming about him -- petulant, but charming. I was worried the film was going to wind up a celebration of bratty teenagedom at the expense of his struggling mother, but to my delight the film successfully balances Hubert's rants with sympathetic (if at times unflinching) portrayals of his mother. Neither of them are really very likable at the end -- their flaws and failures are so savagely exposed to the viewer that you can't help but cringe. That is the beauty of this film -- it's monstrous realness.

I do have a few quibbles -- mostly with the fact that every man in this movie looks a Greek statue who was just recently awoken from a 2000 year slumber. It's not that their bodies are ripped -- on the contrary, cinema outside the states has not idolized muscular men in the same way that American films have. Rather, these men's bodies often resemble more the kind you might find in 1970s gay porn: Hairy but not bearish, thin but not emaciated, toned but not muscular. But their faces are so beautiful that you can imagine feeling uncomfortable in their presence -- it's the kind of beauty that would never be caught dead associating with us peons. Hubert and the other young men who appear are not just physically stunning, but have simultaneously managed to put together an effortless fashion that is meant to look easy but is upon closer inspection incredibly meticulously sculpted. Dolan's curly locks fall over his face just so, suggesting both control and chaos.

This is the one point that makes me feel an outsider to Hubert's experiences. The life of the beautiful. I'm reminded of my very handsome best gay friend telling me when we were 19 that there was a secret look that very sexy guys would give each other to signal their interest in each-other -- and that I would never know that look. A secret society of sorts, replete with their own customs and predilections. Somehow I feel that Hubert's experiences are like that secretive look that I will never know. The problems of the beautiful.

But really this is the only bad thing I can say about this film. It's wonderful -- if at times grotesquely brutal. I hope Dolan continues to make films, although I'm told he has a fear of flying that kept him from attending Frameline. Get over it Dolan -- you need to make more movies, and this is a business that requires traveling.

Here's a trailer: