04
Jun
SFF: I Killed My Mother (J’ai Tué Ma Mère) ★★★★
Website: ikilledmymother.com
Director: Xavier Dolan
Lead: Anne Dorval
Co-Star: Xavier Dolan
Genre: Biography | Drama
Runtime: 96mins
Rating: NR
Stars: ★★★★
Back to the Dendy tonight with Ruen to check out my second Xavier Dolan film of the day. One show in I Killed My Mother his pain and narcissism - playing Hubert Minel a 16 year old who needs to grow up a lot. From the opening scene he is at the throat of his mother - his volcanic outbursts - in which she usually takes passive abuse until she explodes herself with equally as hurtful abuse. The attacks from Hub are personal and nasty and informed by his own insecurity. He uses his words like ammunition in a war which tells us that he feels he cannot love his mother.
Again Dolan plays a gay boy. Hub has a cute hipster boyfriend named Antonin (François Arnaud). Antonin has a dream relationship with his overly friendly mother who encourages Antonin’s art; is not confronted by her son’s sexuality and doesn’t mind the boys doing drugs at home. In contrast Hubert has not told his mother that he is gay. She is left to learn this in a casual conversation at the tanning salon.
While Huberts behaviour to his mother seems over the top - Chantale (Anne Dorval) is impatient and emotionally detached and it is easy to see why he becomes infuriated by her. But his behaviour does not endear us to his cause at all. Indeed about the 80 minute mark this film starts to feel very long and I think this is an element of the film to make us feel just how trying the relationship is.
I have read some reviews which try to explain the gulf between Hubert and his mother as representative as the wall that separates every gay person from his or her parents - and the struggles to topple it. I think this is a little bit simplistic and this gulf is much more about the personalities of the people and not about sexuality.
Performances are good. Arnaud is very nice to look. But ultimately the way this is shot was the real treat for me. Dolan proves well beyond his 20 years in the stylised way he has put this film together with more of a nod to Wong Kar-wai.
Well worth checking out if you can plough through the 80 minute mark and make it to the end.
