Formal Film Study: Xavier Dolan films dealing with sexual orientation

Having heard about Xavier Dolan's newest film Mommy doing so well at Festival de Cannes this year, I became interested in Dolan's other work (all of which has been shown at Cannes) and what influenced it. I noticed that many of his films deal with sexuality and how sexual orientation affects different people. I decided to watch 3 of his films: J'ai Tué Ma Mère, Heartbeats, and Laurence Anyways. Being that Dolan is from Montreal, Canada, all three of these films are in French.

Xavier Dolan

In today's society, being gay is almost considered "trendy". Gay men are portrayed by the media as being feminine, friendly, sassy types. Dolan has obviously tried (and succeeded) to break that stereotype. In all of these films, the main homosexual character is not the stereotypical gay man that you see every time you turn on your television. The characters Dolan creates are normal, subdued, fairly introverted males with pent up frustration and sometimes aggression. In J'ai Tué Ma Mère, the main character, Hubert Minel, is a quiet homosexual teen who fights with his mother and runs away from home just like every other kid does at some point. Heartbeats constructs a protagonist who is boyish and quite rugged. The leading man in Laurence Anyways transforms himself into a woman, but that doesn't stop him from being strong and assertive. Being that Dolan himself is gay, this is probably a reflection of who he is, especially when you take into account that Dolan not only directs but also stars in Heartbeats and J'ai Tué Ma Mère. He is trying to make the point that just because a man is gay, it does not mean that he has to act like a girl.

Another thing I noticed about Laurence Anyways and J'ai Tué Ma Mère was that both films depicted the strain that "coming out" can put on a parent-child relationship. In fact, J'ai Tué Ma Mère centers around that theme. In both movies, the audience sees that at first, the mother of the main character, does not know how to deal with the news that her son is queer. In Laurence Anyways, the main character's mother says to him, "I don't know what you want me to say. Your father will never accept you" after he tells her of his decision to become a woman. In J'ai Tué Ma Mère, Hubert's mother finds out from Hubert's boyfriend's mother that Hubert is gay; she does not mention to Hubert that she knows until it comes out during an argument, which prompts him to run away. This creates a huge divide between mother and son. However in both films, the relationship is mended and the mother comes to terms with her son's sexuality. Laurence and his mother are having lunch together near the end of the film and she says, "I was never close to you. I never saw you as my son. But I do see you as my daughter." Hubert and his mother reconcile at the end of the movie. This interested me and prompted me to look into Dolan himself. I came to discover that Dolan actually describes J'ai Tué Ma Mère as autobiographical. At first, his mother was shocked and did not know how to deal with it. But then she accepted it and now they are close.

Throughout all three of these movies, there were a lot of direct shots of both faces and objects. It made me think of the way that none of these stories beat around the bush - they are direct and get right to the point. They are also all quite long and tell stories in chronological order - there is no jumping around a timeline, which leads us back to the point that they are all very forthright. Yet another thing that caught my attention was that all the films had at least two scenes with discontinuity editing, each one including the main character. This created a juxtaposition between the two characters in the scene and emphasized the way homosexuals often feel like they are not accepted or are not "a part of it".

Direct shot from Heartbeats

From a scene of discontinuity editing in Laurence Anyways

It's easy to see what the political/cultural stance of these movies are. All three films were made within the last 5 years, but even though they are fairly recent, they are still battling to defeat gay stereotypes and prejudices. Laurence Anyways is set in the late 1980s-early 1990s, depicting scenes of bullying and rejection of transsexuality (seen when Laurence is fired from his job and also when he is beaten up on the street). Those things, however, are still prevalent in today's society, which is one of the messages that the film is putting out there, and trying to bring awareness to. J'ai Tué Ma Mère is set in the time in which it was made (2009), but it too has a scene where the main character is beaten up for being gay. Although homosexuality/transsexuality is becoming more prevalent and more widely accepted in today's society, these films are trying to show that we are not all the way there yet; living as a transsexual or a homosexual is still very hard.

Right after Laurence is beaten up, he begs a stranger for a
quarter so he can call for help and gets ignored.