I watched half of this movie two years ago, and then delayed it for a long time because of something, and now I turn it out and watch it again: as my beloved, the first film of Canadian director Xavier Dolan (hereinafter referred to as Xavier Dolan) born in 1989. Three self-directed works - "Laurence Anyways" (hereinafter referred to as "Lawrence of Double Sides"). After watching it, you will be amazed that such a film with a profound sense of life and some detachment is actually from such a young director. Now, the director is also the youngest winner of the Best Director award at Cannes. Let’s talk a little bit about this petty bourgeois art film.
The story of this film is set in one sentence: the person I love in my life (the opposite sex) decided to change gender without my knowledge.
Does this setting feel a little familiar and vulgar? The same was true for last year's Oscar-winning "The Danish Girl," which, while in many ways incomparable, focused on the lives of people on the fringe (ie, transgender). "The Danish Girl" won the Oscar nomination, which has proved that its aesthetic is still biased towards the popular, because it is based on a biography of a real person, and it can't be compared with art films such as "Double Lawrence" in Wen Qing's heart. However, the narrative of "The Danish Girl" is patiently spread, and the emotions are slowly brewing. The performance of the two leading actors is so delicate that every muscle line trembles slightly. In terms of storytelling, Dolan is indeed more attuned to his own temperament, slightly inferior. .
But what I dislike the most about The Danish Girl, and I think it's its biggest flaw - the story revolves around the protagonist, and everything has to do with "his" needs, "his" desires, "his" ideas related. And being a woman is never as simple as learning to put on lipstick, learn to twist your hips, and learn to flirt with men. In the film, I only saw the silent acceptance of everything, and the protagonist's only symbolic resistance for a small amount of time. To put it bluntly, I still look at all this from a male perspective (perhaps the so-called straight male perspective hahaha). But "Double Lawrence" is very interesting at this point. Dolan did not fix the character's perspective on Lawrence, who will be transgender. Instead, I think the first person of this film is not Lawrence, but " On his" partner, Fred, a lot of the time, the story draws directly on Fred's female point of view to see everything that would seem absurd to the average person. In watching Dolan's series of feature films, you will find that Dolan is actually a feminist, and he himself has admitted this. Almost all women in his work are strong and independent, and in "Lawrence of Two Faces" is no exception.
Lawrence's lover, Fred, endured the "changes" of his lover every day, struggling to choose between the person he loves or his own future. This is also the case. The quarrels and outbreaks in the film can be seen everywhere. Every quarrel means the heroine's resistance and dissatisfaction with reality. There's no shortage of hysterical squabbles in Dolan's films, and it's a big emotional gap, with feelings that have been repressed for too long in the early stages of the film gushing out. When arguing, the face is zoomed in, the camera shakes, and the female snarling scolding seems to have become a symbol of Dolan, which allows the audience to be on the scene and directly experience the feeling of heartbreak and despair. There is also a slow-motion scene of Lawrence walking down the street in women's clothing after being beaten. The strange eyes of passers-by and Lawrence's helpless and helpless expression make people feel sympathetic and pity, and then "he" called his mother, When I hoped to meet, when his mother rejected him, when he was in despair and pain, he zoomed in closer to the camera, and every nuanced expression was perfectly interpreted by Popo. ·
The story is set in Canada in the 1990s. Dolan used his amazing taste and cultivation of various sets, costumes and soundtracks to interpret what "art" and "beauty" are. In that closed era, Lawrence's decision to change his mind became more courageous and great, and what he had to endure was more complicated. For the LGBL group, the mutual torture and hope in their unacceptable love in the mainstream society makes people grow and transform more than the stable love!
Does Fred love Lawrence or not?
The answer is yes, as she said when she met Lawrence in '93: "I love you more than my son".
But love is always said lightly, as in the second half of the film, in the transgender home that Lawrence and Fred visit, the hostess says to them, "I love more than his looks, but other things.…”. Fred then hysterically shouted: "She said it easily, as long as her lover looks ugly, she will get rid of him immediately!"
Maybe most of the time what we love is what we want each other to look like. Compared with Lawrence's feelings for Fred, "he" will stop wearing women's clothes to make Fred happy, and he will stop wearing women's clothes after a few years. When they meet, they change out of women's clothes and put on men's clothes to meet her again, all to make Fred happy. "He" will monitor her life every year after breaking up, care about her every move, and write poems for her . And Fred is also beginning to try to accept Lawrence as a woman and continue to love "him" as before, but she has never been able to. There is a sentence at the beginning that runs through to the end of the film, that is: we love each other, regardless of gender. But this kind of love is so rare that Lawrence told the truth at the last meeting - "Even if I didn't transgender, we would still be separated". In a word.
Think you can do it too? In fact, Fred just fell in love with the image of the perfect Lawrence created in her mind, the image of a good man, which convinced her that she would always be the winner.
And Lawrence finally did it. "He's no longer wearing men's clothes when they meet in order to please Fred, but in '99, after "he" changed sex, the last time they met, "he" completely let go of everything, In the past, he lived for his family and his so-called lover, but now he has finally achieved a "complete self". As the introduction said: For Lawrence, transgender is the premise of survival, the first thing that made him breathe underwater for 30 years. Oxygen. Lawrence is finally reborn.
Xavier Dolan's film style is largely influenced by Wong Kar-wai's films (his own interview in "I Kill" also admitted that there are many scenes that pay tribute to him, and many photography styles imitate Wong Kar-wai), those slow The lens has become a material that many people imitate or learn from. Slow motion does have the function of amplifying emotional rendering, and of course it has the effect of enhancing the force.
"Double-Faced Lawrence" is also a feast of pictures showing the charm of characters in slow motion. Coupled with Dolan's free use of colors, scenes and costumes, those pictures are gorgeous, glamorous, or full of artistic sense. (Every frame of screenshots is the rhythm of the desktop). This has also led to many people criticizing his movie for being a gorgeous MV without connotation. Those complicated characters' careful thoughts and secret feelings are all presented on the faces of the actors who are getting closer, just like a lot of MV-like scenes in his "Fantasy Love", and he really went to shoot the MV...( Dumb's "Hello", and the shocking "College boy").
And his works, like himself, are full of controversy, but also full of his own mysterious personal charm. That's why Dolan has always been my love.
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