Featuring: Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, Antoine Olivier Pilon
Screenwriter/Director: Xavier Dolan
Movie Website: mommythemovie.com/#/trailer
2014-15 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 6-12 April, 7.30pm
Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: Startlingly original, discordant and confronting, this is a brilliantly performed and crafted pressure-cooker of a movie with real edge.
Review
Many filmmakers strive for originality and edge, but few truly break new ground or push into confronting territory without resorting to try-hard or obvious shock tactics. Part of the problem is the striving. Being effortfully “different” for the sake of it is a wank, serving the artist’s ego rather than the work itself. The only originality that is worth its name is that which is inevitable, that emerges as a natural expression from the mysterious wanderings of the creative process, and is then honed and shaped through disciplined and judicious crafting to fit the work and present it in optimal form.
In these terms, Mommy is truly original, and genuinely edgy. The 1:1 aspect ratio in which most of the film is shot is unusual and appropriate, cramming the characters (and audience) into a confined space that amplifies the already noisy, almost unrelenting and often confronting intensity of the drama. In rare moments of relief, when the characters escape the pressure cooker confines of their troubled domestic setting, either physically (eg: when skateboarding) or through flights of imagination (eg: rose-coloured dreaming of a longed-for but impossible future), the aspect widens and the screen opens up. The relief is short-lived: reversion to the 1:1 aspect feels like a vice closing. Continue reading Mommy movie review