(no subject)
Leave me, I'll follow you
Xavier Dolan's sophomore effort, Les amours imaginaires, tells an unsatisfying story that is entirely satisfying.
In the summer of 2009, three friends from Montréal set off on a road trip across the United States to scout locations for a film in the making, aptly titled Laurence Anyways. The film in question was to be directed by Xavier Dolan, a then 20-year old filmmaker who had just seen his debut, J'ai tué ma mère, presented to unexpected high praise at the Cannes Film Festival a month prior. Though the three of them were working on pre-production of Laurence Anyways, it was an expensive film that would likely not see principal photography until 2010. One day, while riding a train through one of the eastern states, Dolan pulled out a pen and paper and began writing a screenplay. It wasn't meant to be serious, or even probable. As most writers know, sometimes we put pen to paper out of boredom, never expecting it to turn into anything. Dolan was writing a personal screenplay, one for him and the two people accompanying him, Monia Chokri and Niels Schneider. Out of boredom he wrote it, and out of apparent boredom for having to wait for funding for Laurence Anyways, he ended up making Les amours imaginaires.
To think that Dolan, Chokri and Schneider made this film under the influence of a thought that might have gone something like, "Let's star in a movie together" is completely inexcusable. But this is why crazy people exist. If it weren't for them, films such as Les amours imaginaires would never get made. As Laurence Anyways wasn't going anywhere for another year, Dolan ended up transferring his experimental screenplay written on a train onto the screen. He cast himself, Chokri and Schneider in the leading roles; designed the sets and the costumes; storyboarded; shot; and edited the film. Less than a year after this train ride, on May 15th at 10:15 pm in France, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received a standing ovation. I've been a fan of Dolan since seeing J'ai tué ma mère, so I'm not going to lie, I was semi-stalking him within the boundaries of Canadian law. I remember reading in December of principal photography starting up for Les amours imaginaires, then of principal photography ending in February. I remember thinking to myself that it would probably not get its release until the middle of summer. But no, apparently Dolan is on a caffeine diet and can work faster than most experienced professionals out there.
Here's another thing: this is why I think movies work best on a low budget. When films are funded with too much money that they don't even know how to work with, they become convoluted, sloppy, and take millions of years longer to make than normal. I hate to constantly have to bash this movie but seriously....Avatar, anyone? (I feel like I can say this because Xavier Dolan has kind of already done it. In a conference organized by Telefilm Canada at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Dolan, along with fellow Canadian filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Noah Pink sort of, kind of, dissed Canadian filmmakers who go to Hollywood....like James Cameron).
I saw this film at the Quartier Latin Cineplex in Montréal, Québec. Which was quite fitting as the film is deeply rooted in Montréal. Unfortunately, Les amours imaginaires will not likely get a release outside Québec until it is released in the States. Fortunately, the States have bought the distribution rights for it, so anglo-Canada will hopefully get this soon too. Five days after the movie screened at Cannes, forty countries expressed interest in distribution rights, meaning a much wider release outside of North America.
I'll admit it, I came into the theatre with psychotically high expectations. I mean, it was Xavier Dolan for God's sake. I have not seen many filmmakers do what he does with the camera. I was expecting to come out of the theatre having seen the best movie of the year so far. Which isn't a great mind set to be in for me. Whenever I go into the theatre with high expectations, I'm always, always disappointed. Not the case this time around.
Anyway, onto the review of the actual film and less on my stalking tendencies and my unrequited love for Dolan. Les amours imaginaires is a simple enough story, with a concept we've probably heard a gazillion times: THE (shock) LOVE TRIANGLE. We've seen it in classics like The Age of Innocence, Mansfield Park, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Room With a View. We see it today in stories like Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Twilight, The Edukators, Pearl Harbor (yes the Michael Bay version of it), hell even the original Star Wars trilogy had more than subtle hints of it. I've seen enough love triangle movies to last me a lifetime, and I have to admit, I'm not that keen on seeing anymore of them and I was thinking that Les amours imaginaires wouldn't be all that different. Sure, maybe the story would be told superbly, but the plot itself would be nothing all that new. The thing that surprised me most about this movie was the fact that the story, though it has a stereotypical theme, became an account that was nothing like what is expected when two people fall in love with the same person. The thing about Les amours imaginaires is that though it is a story about a love triangle, it is completely void of romance or eroticism. This is the film`s strongest point.
Les amours imaginaires is about two best friends, Marie (Monia Chokri) and Francis (Xavier Dolan) who, while washing dishes at a get-together with friends, find themselves observing Nicolas (Niels Schneider), a blond, curly haired figure with mysterious green eyes who smokes a cigarette as if he were making love to it. This is where disaster strikes. Nicolas gets in contact with Francis, who invites Marie, and all of a sudden they are all hanging out together like the most amicable of friends. The more Francis and Marie spend time with Nicolas, the more they convince themselves that they are in love with him. I'll admit it, Niels Schneider is not that significant looking a dude. If I were to pass him on the street I would probably do just that. Pass him. But Dolan, who also cast Niels in J'ai tué ma mère, has somehow managed to turn Schneider into a kind of male version of Helen of Troy. It's fucking incredible. Whatever Dolan did, I as a part of the audience immediately felt Francis and Marie's attraction to this guy from the moment the scene opens with him sitting in the middle of the shot. They love him for the way he smokes, the way he dances, the way he worships the past, the way he gets uncomfortably close to them, the way he reminds them of works of art.
Alternating between a mockumentary style with personal narratives and a dramatic style acting as example, Les amours imaginaires comes off as a study on how love is an unnecessary bitch. This movie is much more so like reading someone`s diary, than it is entertainment. It leaves us not with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside but a feeling of déjà-vu; of been there, done that, felt like shit, not doing it again. It`s so sadly realistic that I felt as if Dolan had taken things that I had experienced and put them on-screen. Of course, that isn`t how it happened. He simply expressed a reality of the human species; that is, we tend to fuck each other over and walk away.
Marie and Francis` relationship with Nicolas comes off as a game of cat and mouse. Nicolas doesn`t seem to be fully there all the time; he acts almost as an image that fades in and out, a fantastic dream that one wakes up from and immediately forgets. He doesn`t seem all that conscious of Marie and Francis`romantic interest in him. He`s like a floating anomaly. He sails indifferently through the world as a boy and girl passionately pursue him, their sanity clinging onto him for dear life. Nicolas need do nothing but accidentally fall into their laps for the whole world to be right again. And that`s how he does it for most of the film -- by accident. Yet Marie and Francis seem completely enthralled by it, savouring every precious moment of him because like a slippery fish or an intangible dream, they can never quite catch him and make him real, make this love real.
That`s another thing about this movie that intrigued me, the fact that much of this so-called relationship doesn`t seem real. Marie and Francis` attraction to Nicolas seems superficial. Nicolas seems superficial. His mother with her colourful wigs and European clothes seems superficial. The cinematography and design of the film are so esthetically pleasing that it all must be superficial. You start to wonder, as a member of the audience, whether your own attraction to Nicolas is genuine, or if you only find him attractive because the other protagonists in the movie do. To add to that, Dolan gives us no pretense to believe that Marie and Francis ever engage in sexual relations with Nicolas. They sleep with him, that much is true, but that`s all it is, SLEEP. We get nothing but shots of them the morning after, lying in bed with Nicolas in the middle, all looking as innocent as three kids who fell asleep in front of the T.V. But that`s reality. It isn`t romantic or erotic or sexy. It`s just awkward, detached and uncomfortable, filled with moments of silence where no one knows what to say.
For such a low-budget movie, the performances are exceptional and the visuals are good enough to taste. Niels Schneider is the master of playing dazed and confused and indifferent. In an interview with Canadian media, Dolan explained how he had instructed Schneider to simply stop acting, to be blank. That direction served extremelly well, bringing out the character`s beauty in his mystery. Monia Chokri will definitely see nominations coming her way. Unlike the character of Francis, who is more reserved in his self doubt, Marie is very bold and expressive, making herself the most visible among the three. Chokri nicely portrays a character who bears an image of maturity and poise, while at the same time having expectations that reveal her youth and ignorance. Chokri has some of the greatest facial expressions around, and they perfectly go hand in hand with Dolan`s dynamically-written dialogue. Xavier Dolan himself surprised me in this film. After seeing him play an angsty, frustrated teenager in J´ai tué ma mère, I was half expecting him to play the aggressive lover. Dolan, however, pulls off the quiet Francis with a soft delicacy, a gentle subtlety and an unexpected comedic timing. It`s amazing to think that a young director is able to so smoothly take his ego out of his film and submit entirely to the character. I love that one can watch this film and forget that the visionnary is in the picture itself.
Which brings me to the visuals. No special effects were used in this film, nor are there sweeping shots of the Québécois landscape achieved by putting a camera crew in a helicopter, nor was Megan Fox anywhere present, yet Les amours imaginaires has some of the best visuals I have ever seen. Dolan, who designed the costumes and the sets, has created a cinematic look that harkens back to the grace and beauty of the past. From Marie`s Audrey Hepburn inspired clothes to Francis` James Dean hair to the dainty silver band that crowns Nicolas` brilliant locks like a beautiful woman in a Mucha painting, everything in this movie screams classic elegance. In today`s film culture where every movie has to be released in 3-D, because apparently we are all so near sighted that we need extra help, Dolan`s careful eye and crafty imagination communicates and reaches out to the audience in a very personal way. Every colour in every shot feels like an electrocution, a wake-up call to senses you didn`t even know you possessed. And the greatest part of it? You`re seeing it entirely, wholly with your own eyes. Nothing more, nothing less. No 3-D glasses to throw in the bin on your way out.
One of the songs featured on the soundtrack, "Le temps est bon" by Isabelle Pierre, has the line, "Le temps est bon, le ciel est bleu. J`ai deux amis qui sont aussi mes amoureux," which translates to "Beautiful weather, blue skies. I have two friends who are also my lovers." Despite the complete and utter fuck fest the characters go through, the film still leaves you with a feeling of anticipation, of admiration for the bizarre reality that is human attraction. The vulnerability and outrageousness of the characters is tragic yet at the same time charming in a bittersweet way. Makes you oddly want to try it out for yourself. To test friendship by pursuing the same person. To find unrequited love and experience the hopelessness of what it is to be romantically challenged. In the end, one finds that there is something strangely romantic about love and rejection.
Dolan has mentioned previously that the film is very much an intimate, close to heart venture sprung from close friendships with Chokri and Schneider. Although their relationship is nothing in real life as it is on film, the three of them have nevertheless created something that shows commitment, dedication and love towards storytelling and expression, a kind of passionate attachment their characters clearly lacked within the fictional dimension. Although Chokri and Schneider are not part of the cast of Laurence Anyways, the fact that they were with Dolan during pre-production for the film makes me all the more excited for it (Laurence Anyways is due in theatres in 2012). Who knows? Maybe one day in the near future, while sitting in a living room drunk out of their minds, they`ll decide, out of the blue, to test out those creative juices once more.