Matthias and Maxime have been friends since childhood. Matthias (Gabriel D’Almeida Freitas, in his second role for the big screen) tries to gain a foothold in the business world while Maxime makes a living as bartender, caring for his mother, a recovering addict. The two young men give off slight reticence, an awkwardness, it becomes clear quickly that these two aren’t just involved in a ... more >
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CANNES DAYS 8 and 9 | “La fille inconnue,” “Personal Shopper,” “Inversion” and “Juste la fin du monde”
More misses than hits in fest's second half
The second part of the Cannes Festival is turning out to be harder to love than the first one, an enlightened epoch when “Ma Loute” and “Mal de Pierres,” an off-kilter comedy and a love drama respectively, were easy to stamp as good cinema. Week two isn’t all gems. Yesterday, the Dardenne Brothers’s “La fille inconnue” (“The Unknown Girl”) received a lukewarm response. In it a young woman ... more >
A supremely Dolanesque kind of MOMMY
The character of "Steve" is a rosebush of thorns and charisma
Anne Dorval, Antoine Olivier Pilon and Suzanne Clement
Directed by Xavier Dolan
If you have ever watched a televised murder trial and wondered why the family would support the killer, then Xavier Dolan’s “Mommy” is the film for you. This provocative French-language Canadian film (it had its world premiere at the 2014 Cannes Festival) zeroes in on the extreme relationship of a mother and her child. At times violent at others tender and finally doomed to tragedy Dolan's ... more >
DAY 8: CANNES COMES ALIVE WITH “MOMMY”
This is Xavier Dolan's sixth feature film
140 mins.
This Cannes Festival has finally been unshackled from the supremacy of older males turning out less than stellar work: Xavier Dolan, a twenty five year-old filmmaker from Québec who's brought films to Cannes before has thrown down the gauntlet. His new film "Mommy" is the first one to appear in the competition section and is the new favorite for the top prize this year. In “Mommy” single-mother ... more >
Heartbeats
A first film by Canadian up-and-comer Xavier Dolan
Xavier Dolan, Monia Chokri and Niels Schneider
Directed by Xavier Dolan
Last year in Cannes I remember seeing a youngish filmmaker by the name of Xavier Dolan zipping around town, a small but growing entourage in tow. Well, it really wasn't an entourage, it was more like a handler. Dolan, a filmmaker from Quebec who appeared in a number of commercials there and submitted his first film, "I killed my mother," to Canada's national film fund at the age of 17, was in town ... more >
Of Gods and Men
France's biggest movie of 2010
Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale and Olivier Rabourdin
Directed by Xavier de Beauvois
The year is 1993. Nine Cistercian monks live in the monastery of Tibhirine in the Atlas mountains of Algeria. The monks live in good intelligence with the Muslim villagers, farming, making honey, treating patients in their clinic, teaching children. Unfortunately, the precursor—and to us now familiar—signs of fundamental Islam are entering this peaceful community. Murders of foreign construction ... more >