In the past 10 years, Canadian director Xavier Dolan has almost used up the aura of genius. As Cannes’s “biological son”, Dolan made a blockbuster at the “Director’s Fortnight” in Cannes from his debut “I Killed My Mother”. After that, almost every work was easily nominated in Cannes, “Fantasy Love” and “Double Sided”. "Lawrence" has been shortlisted for "One Kind of Attention". "Mummy" (2014) won the jury special award for the first time in the main competition. "Just the End of the World" (2016) won the jury award for an unprecedented time Only one step away. It's a pity that also from the beginning of "Just the End of the World", many film critics saw that his work was limited and his unchanging author style gradually fell into a dead end of self-replication. Unsurprisingly, the first English film "The Death and Life of John Donovan" to help out in the 2018 All-Star team failed to make it into Cannes, and last year this new work "Matthias and Maxim" returned to the main competition. , But it is more like a disguised compensation and comfort for this movie genius.
Dolan's subject matter and audience have always been relatively narrow. The tit-for-tat mother-child relationship and self-identity of sexual awareness often cannot escape the category of family ethics indoor drama, and the genre pattern is not grand enough. This may be closely related to his personal experience. This new film is no exception. The story tells the story of two good friends from childhood who met again at a friend's party. A simple kiss triggered a series of unexpected events. Although it cannot be said that Dolan is exhausted, but this time he can only find his little personal style in the essential mother-child quarrel plot and the kaleidoscope-like pop soundtrack. The only bright spot is the narrative. He tried to tell a emotional story spanning more than 10 years without any flashbacks. He also set up a "countdown" time structure to create a more compact and strong sense of rhythm.
The director's spirit of challenging is worthy of encouragement. Unfortunately, his skill is still not superb. The overall look is still like a diary fragment of a running account. It is difficult to find too many touching highlights. This kind of private narrative must be based on carefully choreographed character dialogues and emotional portrayals, and the way close to the comics outlines the characters feels bland. The two clues of mother-child relationship and male friendship are independent. It is difficult to have a moment to advance each other in structure and meaning. It feels that the director is more like staying in a comfortable safe zone lazy to innovate and think. If the self-repetitive styles of several Cannes elders such as Ken Rocky and the Danes brothers are worthy of tolerance, then Dolan’s mediocre and boring self-replication is unforgivable, because he obviously has more unknown and interesting things. The subject matter is worth exploring.
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