J’ai tué Ma Mère (I Killed My Mother)
I Killed My Mother. (c) 2009 Mifilifilms Inc.
“Standing ovation at Cannes well deserved”.
A standing ovation for a twenty year-old director at Cannes. Unbelievable, you think? Think again. Not only did this happen, but it lasted for several minutes, following the screening of Xavier Dolan’s impressive debut, J’ai Tué Ma Mère (I Killed My Mother).
Based on a story Dolan wrote when he was in his mid-teens, and semi-autobiographical in nature, the film is a painfully honest account of a mother and son grappling with the turmoil and emotional ambivalence surrounding a young man’s emerging adulthood.
Dolan starred in the central role, as Hubert: a young gay man, living with his mother after his parents’ divorce.
Hubert is restless and resentful. Everything his mother says and does annoys him. His mother, on the other hand, is increasingly exasperated by her son’s diffident behaviour.
The killing, in this case, is not literal - but literary. Embarrassed by his mother, Hubert avoids involving her in a school assignment, by claiming she is dead. This sparks a relationship between Hubert and his teacher that is one of the many satisfying strands of the story.
Of Dolan’s strengths - and he has many - perhaps the most striking, is his ability to write interesting characters. The story is not seen merely from Hubert’s perspective: his teacher’s and, more importantly, his mother’s characters are liberally fleshed out.
For such a young man, this is an incredible feat. Others in his situation, would have devised a self-indulgent story, in which the audience’s sympathies would be manipulated and skewed towards the protagonist.
Instead, Dolan’s Hubert is exasperating not only to his mother, but to us all. In one look, following one of many verbal onslaughts from her son, Anne Dorval (brilliant, as Hubert’s mother) conveys the agonising pain all parents feel when they are inevitably (if only temporarily) rejected by their children. It’s a painful moment, in which parents realise that their children have become aware of their faults.
Yet we can see why Hubert is struggling, and can appreciate that children of his age teeter between wanting to be free, and wanting to be comforted by boundaries established by their parents. They don’t want their parents to interfere, but they want them to be present.
It’s a delicate balance that can be difficult for parents and children alike, to navigate. Ultimately, Dolan’s film shines a ray of hope on these fraught relationships.
What could have been a vanity project is, instead, a mature and satisfying drama with plenty of lighthearted moments to jolly the story along. Nicholas Savard-L’Herbier’s music is subtle but effective - and catchy.
The standing ovation for a twenty year-old at Cannes not only happened, but was well deserved.