Love wins all
 

PostED ON 13.10.2024

The prolific filmmaker returns to Lyon to engage with the public at a master class and during a special evening where we’ll fête his tribute book commemorating the 10^th anniversary of Mommy.

© DR

“I don't know what happened. When I was little, we loved each other. I love her. I can look at her, say ‘Hello’, be beside her, but... I can't be her son..."  These are the first words spoken by Xavier Dolan, actor, screenwriter, director and producer of I Killed My Mother, made in 2008 at the age of nineteen. In a close-up, against a black and white canvas, Dolan revealed his true colours. His cinema would be one in which subversive and paradoxical things were stated bluntly, as long as they served the one and only universal cause: love! Love for his mother, his best female friend, his best male friend, the boy next door, the inaccessible idol.

Dolan and his cinema are synonymous with one another, considering that the man imagined everything that needed to be on the screen from a very young age. Brought up around images (by age four he was acting in ads and films), Dolan's writing from his first film demonstrates a feverish, vivid temperament that shatters the screen. Phenomenal slow-motion shots, an aspect ratio expanding the screen halfway through the film, XXL close-ups, statement backdrops of colour and insane fashion choices make Dolan's cinema symbolist, poignant and modern. In a single decade (2009-2019) and in eight features, Dolan, who was born in Montreal in 1989, has revitalised the cinema of Quebec, and then some. 

Collaborating as effectively with his loyal troupe of actors - Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, Monia Chokri, Antoine Olivier Pilon - as with French and Anglo-Saxon stars like Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux, Kit Harington or Nathalie Portman, Dolan creates a rhythm with them, a flow of speech precipitated by the overflowing emotions expressed by middle-class characters. In each of his movies, there looms the ‘difficulty of being’, a concept dear to Jean Cocteau, asking a single question: Do we have the right to exist as we are, especially when we are ultra-sensitive?

Matthias & Maxime by Xavier Dolan (2019) © DR

He is the irritable and disarming son of I Killed My Mother, the transgender woman of Laurence Anyways, the hyperactive teenager of Mommy (on which Dolan has published a fine book, A Friendship Through Film, co-written by Shayne Laverdière, published by MK2, Sons of Manual). He is the worldwide superstar of The Death & Life of John F. Donovan... Feeling different - and daring to show up anyway - needing to - also permeates It’s Only the End of the World, Tom at the Farm, and Matthias & Maxime. Dolan's cinema is both political and relatable. Dolan instinctively knows the significance of mainstream songs. They express everything, like the classic scene in Mommy where the young protagonist ‘lets loose’ to express his inner angst in an energetic, unsettling rendition of ‘On ne change pas’ by Céline Dion – “She’s a national treasure!” he teases. Xavier Dolan's world indulges in furious sentimental confessions. These are human stories, that, from a certain viewpoint, are bursting with necessary bravado, like Laurence arriving in the shot, purple trenchcoat flapping wildly in the wind, or, on the contrary, moving into the frame like Maxime, carrying his heartbreaking frailties of a relationship that’s beyond him. Dolan’s cinema is full of the qualities of the self-taught: inventiveness and beauty.

Virginie Apiou

Master class
A conversation with Xavier Dolan
Sunday October 13 at 3pm at Pathé Bellecour
With the support of 

A Special Event
An evening with Xavier Dolan
Mommy by Xavier Dolan (2h14)
Monday, October 14 at 7pm at the Auditorium de Lyon

BOOK: A Friendship Through Film, )Shayne Laverdière and Xavier Dolan (mk2, Sons of Manual, 2024)

Séances

Laurence Anyways by Xavier Dolan (2012, 2h48)
UGC Part-Dieu Sun 13 7:30pm | UGC Confluence Mon 14 2:30pm | UGC Ciné Cité Internationale Sat 19 8pm

Mommy by Xavier Dolan (2014, 2h14)
Auditorium Mon 14 7pm | UGC Confluence Sun 20 2pm

It’s Only the End of the World by Xavier Dolan (Juste la fin du monde, 2016, 1h39, VFSTA)
Institut Lumière (Hangar) Sun 13 8:30pm | Comœdia Mon 14 11:15am | Pathé Bellecour Thu 17 10pm