2018 Top Ten List #6 It's Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde)

Director Xavier Dolan on the set

Dolan with cameraman André Turpin on the set

IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD (Juste la fin du monde)             A-                   

Canada  France  (97 mi)  2016  d:  Xavier Dolan

I don’t understand you.  But I love you.  I love you.  No one will take that away from me.

―La mère (Nathalie Baye)

Perhaps critics are tired of the narcissistic inclinations of a bombastic young director who’s been described as a wunderkind, finally drawing a line in the sand and claiming “No mas.”  It has been pointed out that Dolan’s films deal with relationship strife, where his earlier films, in chronological order, center upon “a spiteful queer teenager, a love triangle, a man transitioning to become a woman, the aftermath of death, and a teenager with autism,” with near unanimous consent declaring that his most recent work, showing a family imploding upon itself, is a drastically lesser work.  The film was mercilessly booed by critics at its press screening in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, especially after it was announced it was awarded the festival’s Grand Prix (2nd place) and also the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, described at the time as “the worst decision Cannes has made in more than 20 years.”  Immediately panned by American and British critics, yet raved by French critics (some of which is summed up here: English-speaking critics don't get Xavier Dolan | Montreal Gazette), the reactions were swift and overwhelmingly negative, described as “insufferable, “a screeching melodrama,” his “first total misfire,” “a disaster,” yet conceding it may be his “most mature work (but also his) most unbearable … a frequently excruciating dramatic experience in which characters seem almost never to stop talking.”  Perhaps shouting is a more appropriate description, as the play it’s based upon is overwhelmingly suffocating, yet that’s exactly what it’s intended to be, existing in a unique world all its own.  Critics rejected it anyway, described as “unfortunately his worst by some distance,” or “It’s like watching assholes scream at each other for two hours,” where Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian was the lone English critic singing the film’s praises, describing it as “histrionic and claustrophobic: deliberately oppressive and pretty well pop-eyed in its madness ― and yet a brilliant, stylised and hallucinatory evocation of family dysfunction: a companion piece in some ways to the epic shouting match that was Dolan’s earlier movie, Mommy.  This is a pressure cooker of anxiety, a film with the dials turned up to 12,” while Mark Peranson from Cinema Scope wrote “it’s a one-note film that sets a shrill tone early, never wavers over the course of its mercifully short running time, and is an experience completely bereft of any pleasure or fun, right down to André Turpin’s claustrophobic cinematography.  Say what you will about Mommy (2014), but at least it had, as one says in the fashion world, ‘flair’; Juste la fin du monde takes the fun out of dysfunction.”  One of the problems at Cannes, or any important festival, is the significance of instant analysis from social media, where critics are expected to spout opinions the minute a film is over, while like-minded viewers all get on their twitter feeds to make their pronouncements, which in this case condemned the film to a swath of uniform negativity, with hateful comments right out of MEAN GIRLS (2004), completely ignoring texture or what the film was about.  When The Playlist’s Jessica Kiang wrote, “It suggests a level of martyred self-involvement on Dolan’s part that is tantamount to a persecution complex,” Dolan responded on Twitter, “I’ll be alright, Jess.  As long as I ignore your cheap parallelism between a life you don’t know and a play you’ve never read.”  Dolan understandably took offense at being dismissed in such a collective fashion, with everyone ganging up at once, describing a mentality he thought was overly personal and unfairly lemming-like.  “This is not journalism.  It’s gossip.  It’s pretending to be a sophisticated analysis, but really it’s cheap psychology.”  The only new film at Cannes to be screened on 35mm and not digitally, it was a box office hit in France, becoming Canada’s official submission for Best Foreign Film, reaching the shortlist of nine films, but not the final five. 

Never released theatrically in the U.S. (viewed on Netflix), this is only the second Dolan film after 2014 Top Ten List #7 Tom at the Farm (Tom à la ferme)  to be written by someone else, in this case French playwright Jean-Luc Lagarce back in 1990, as he was attempting to express the inexpressible, stricken with AIDS and dying from the illness within five years at age 38.  Among the subtle changes, the film is spoken entirely in European French and not the more idiomatic and colloquial Québécois language spoken by the French-Canadian director.  This was reportedly one of the things that inspired Dolan the most, as if he was experiencing an altogether new play.  The overall feeling of doom is the most pervasive influence hovering over the film, haunting and overwhelming everything in sight, like a bulldozer mowing everything down, even the most intricate thoughts.  It’s a starkly realistic drama that’s in-your-face most of the time, refusing to allow viewers any air to breathe, literally sucking the life force out of the room, which occurs over and over again, like a record on repeat, reliving the uncomfortable moments all over again.  While it’s anything but a crowd pleaser, it’s a dramatic tour-de-force featuring some of France’s best performers, beautifully acted, in some cases working against type, proving to be a powerhouse theatrical work along the lines of Mike Nichols’ Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), as characters are stripped naked and defenseless, at least for a moment, where you substitute booze with being gay and having AIDS, which puts you at a disadvantageous place and keeps you there, often unable to speak.  Rivaling the dark tone of family dysfunction (and the yelling and screaming) is Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County (2013), which was a 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner, with Meryl Streep playing one of the vilest characters she’s ever played, where this is a vast improvement over the lackadaisical direction of that film.  Dolan turns this into a claustrophobic chamber drama, complete with extreme close-ups, tight framing (no medium establishing shots), with short bursts of dramatic music, cinematography by André Turpin, but it’s what he does with music in brief flashback sequences that adds such a modernist touch, caught in a momentary reverie before jarring jump cut sequences create abrupt mood changes that snap us out of it, slapping us back into the present, yet feeling weak and helpless, unable to drive the narrative, continually feeling like you’re getting eaten alive.  Louis (Gaspard Ulliel) is a successful gay playwright that decides to return home after an absence of twelve years, where he intends to tell his family the bad news that he’s dying, where that’s awkward enough, but his family is so dysfunctional and temperamental, a picture of volatile emotions and frayed nerves, that they continually self-destruct before he has a chance to reveal anything.  The overall sense of alienation is dramatically drawn, not just in time and distance, but in the absence of things we value most, like trust, sharing, or even helping.  None of that exists here, as he’s more like a stranger, becoming famous somewhere else, living a mysterious life that involves none of them, where to each and every one of them he’s an open question mark, where the reason for his visit is veiled in uncertainty.      

Some of the narrative is a near parallel story to TOM AT THE FARM, where a stranger shows up to visit a family mourning the loss of a son, where the stranger is the ex-lover of the deceased, but his family has been led to believe he had a girlfriend, hiding the fact he was gay.  The viciousness of the homophobic aggressiveness coming from the bullying older brother is utterly savage, showing sociopathic tendencies, where Dolan creates a psychological horror thriller out of being gay, with a feverish anti-gay mindset clouding what is in fact a love story that can’t be told.  Similarly Louis shows up on the doorstep of a family that doesn’t recognize him, that only hears about him, mourning the tragedy of his own loss, yet he can’t speak the words to any of them, as none of them really know him.  Meanwhile he has an older brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel) who totally resents him, both for being gay and for being sophisticated and successful, where he really doesn’t want to hear anything this guy has to say.  When others start sucking up to him, this only sets off his explosive temper, as he can’t stand the phoniness or the attention Louis receives, attacking anyone that tries to open up to him, as if his brother is too important to hear any of this small talk from the provinces, as he’s probably leaving just as quickly as he arrived, where he needs to say what he has to say and then get the hell out and go back to wherever it is in the city that he lives.  Antoine works in a tool shop, with little opportunity to realize his dreams, as he’s too busy going to work every day.  It’s a routine that never ends.  So whenever Louis opens his mouth, Antoine interrupts, claiming he doesn’t want to hear it, as he knows Louis has better things to do.  Antoine lays this attitude on each and everyone else, literally barking at people to stop playing games, then takes offense when people continually tell him to shut up, that he’s ruining the moment.  While the work is abrasive and infuriating, there is a point to all that back and forth bickering, as in the process souls are stripped bare, untold truths are continually exposed, which only matters if viewers have the patience to explore what’s under the surface.  Despite the fireworks, the film is tender to the core, with Dolan creating some magical moments throughout, such as the beaming smile offered by the extraordinarily compassionate Catherine (Marion Cotillard in an utterly haunting performance), Antoine’s mousy and overly timid wife (who’s never met Louis before), an open gesture that welcomes Louis back into his home, but he doesn’t return it, appearing to have more somber things on his mind, which in itself makes a profound statement, wiping that smile right off Catherine’s face, revealing the gravity of the moment which perhaps only she understands.  The dismal tone recalls Ozon’s TIME TO LEAVE (2005), which features an aging Jeanne Moreau, yet it is the youngest character in the film who learns of their fate and is literally a march to death, where the impending threat of doom pervades throughout every frame of that film. 

Nathalie Baye plays the tyrannical mother, the omniscient dictator over the misfits, another Dolan portrait of an overbearing mother, this time dizzyingly artificial, a self-centered diva drowning herself in garish makeup and outlandish costumes (all chosen by Dolan, of course, who also does his own editing and English subtitles), seemingly more at home in a Tennessee Williams play, as lost as Blanche Dubois, yet she’s constantly serving various delights out of the kitchen, as if the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  While Antoine is the battering ram older brother, annihilating everything in his path, Léa Seydoux is Suzanne, the trippy younger sister who idolizes her older brother that she barely knows, while Catherine spends much of time being the gracious host that no one else wants to be, overly polite, constantly apologizing for saying the wrong thing, brashly critiqued by her loud-mouthed husband, though she’s the closest thing to meeting Louis on the same wavelength, tender and mostly quiet, keeping to herself, intuitively adding a touch of introspection to the family.  What’s written into the storyline is just how nervous the family members are, all overly anxious, like walking in bare feet on hot coals, acting so unlike themselves, supposedly, getting ready for the arrival of Louis as the prodigal son returns, making more of the situation, trying to be so exact and precise, not wanting to disappoint, where every word takes on a new significance, with Catherine accidentally calling him sir, which sends her husband off into another tirade, yet that’s what this play is all about, the effect Louis has on everyone, just how uncomfortable he makes them feel, saying things they don’t mean, or talking endlessly about nothing.  The utter superficiality on display is stunning, yet there are moments of plainspoken lucidity where you can cut the tension with a knife, where the words pierce through the armor with deadly accuracy, becoming phenomenally truthful, even hurtful, making Louis shrink back into himself, retreating into silence and resignation, where it’s clear some know exactly who he is (Antoine and his mother), having experienced living with him before, recalling his moods and just how difficult it was, while others are enthralled by his very presence (Catherine and Suzanne).  Dolan mixes flashback sequences into the mix, slo-mo, also pop songs, which are among the strongest scenes of the film, as they’re just as overpowering, balancing overtly forceful scenes with quiet and delicate moments.  Louis himself is an extremely compelling character as viewers know his intentions, and see how easily sidetracked he gets, remaining isolated and fragile, making a quick phone call to his boyfriend before getting worn down by the friction that resides in his own family.  Bathed in an orange light, like a final sunset, the finale may as well be a tribute to uncompromising French director Maurice Pialat, whose presence near the end of À Nos Amours (To Our Loves) (1983) creates unexpected havoc, uprooting standard decorum, instilling a sense of mayhem flying in the face of reason, forcing conventionality out the window, yet creating an intensity level that’s off the charts, as the room spins totally out of control.  

2013 Top Ten List #2 Laurence Anyways

LAURENCE ANYWAYS       A           
Canada  France  (168 mi)  2012  d:  Xavier Dolan        Official site [Canada]

Two pale figures
Ache in silence
Timeless
In the quiet ground
Side by side
In age and sadness

I watched
And acted wordlessly
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Moving through an unknown past
Dancing at the funeral party

Memories of childrens dreams
Lie lifeless
Fading
Lifeless
Hand in hand with fear and shadows
Crying at the funeral party

I heard a song
And turned away
As piece by piece
You performed your story
Noiselessly across the floor
Dancing at the funeral party

—The Cure - The funeral party - YouTube (4:15), 1981

Easily one of the movie experiences of the year, yet this film was inexplicably chosen to bypass theaters from the entire Chicagoland region and instead played for less than a week in the barren and isolated realm of South Barrington in a 30 theater Cineplex that sits in the middle of an empty field, where at the time tickets were purchased the box office clerk had never heard of this film, where a friend and I were the only two patrons (perhaps all day, perhaps all week) to watch this incredible movie.  Only 19 and 21 when he made his first two movies, now 23-years of age making his first film that does not star the director, he nonetheless writes an original script, directs, edits, subtitles, produces, and does the costume design for his third film, something of an epic romance, a film navigating ten years in the complex and turbulent relationship between a couple in the throes of love where at age 35 the man becomes an openly female transsexual, a gender shift that tests the boundaries of love and tolerance.  The cinematic reach of this film is simply outstanding, where one would be hard pressed to find a more originally conceived film all year, where the fluidity of the slo-mo and hand-held camera movement by Yves Bélanger is balanced by perfectly composed shots, likely by the director himself, where the look of the film is meticulously shaped.  The acting throughout is superb, especially the passionate and powerful performances of the two leads, Melvil Poupaud (who first worked for Raúl Ruiz at age 9 and a last-minute replacement for Louis Garrel) from Ozon’s HIDEAWAY (2009) and TIME TO LEAVE (2005) as the more subdued Laurence and Suzanne Clément as the fiery Frédérique, more commonly called Fred, where there are blown up moments of anger and melodramatic excess, but also quietly heartfelt moments of restraint that express an intimate sincerity, approaching a kind of honesty rarely seen in films today. 

Not since Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret (2011) has a film delivered so many sensational sequences, where the sheer originality factor is impressive, as every scene is beautifully set up, and Dolan’s exquisite use of music can be jaw-dropping on occasion.  Some may feel cheated that the story only tangentially explores gender identification, never approaching a sex change, that it is far more about the tragic effects of an impossible love saga between two strong-willed, artistically inclined characters.  Both, however, are clearly defined, where at nearly three hours in length the film is a marathon for all concerned, where the emotional peaks and valleys are explored at length, delivering cluster bombs of emotion, giving the film a novelesque scope, thoroughly taking its time, often lingering far longer with characters than other auteurs might dare, a common criticism of Cassavetes as well, giving the film a few jagged edges and a feeling of imperfection, where this is not the shortened product as a result of studio demands, but already feels like the extended director’s cut.  Despite claims of youthful indulgence or exaggerated overstylization that make conventional filmmaking seem like ancient history, it remains one of the best and most convincingly moving films seen all year due to the director’s unflappable persistence in accentuating such a deeply felt, carefully nuanced level of humanism.        

Set in and around Montreal during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the story spans an entire decade, using a completely naturalistic film style intermixed with surrealist bursts of inspiration, where perhaps no one uses music to the same dazzling effect as Dolan, expressing the state of mind of the characters while also providing an infectious dose of youthful energy.  The film begins in an empty apartment, curtains flapping in the breeze, as a door closes like an ending chapter from a book, as Laurence walks outdoors into the light of day dressed as a woman, drawing looks of curiosity and surprise, perhaps even flirting with danger, set to Fever Ray’s “If I Had A Heart” Exclusive: Watch The Opening Sequence From Xavier Dolan's ...  (2:23), where Dolan startlingly provokes the audience with a montage of close-ups and faces, where the viewing audience itself is reeled into this spectator observation mode, becoming part of a collective Greek chorus that bears witness to the events we are about to see.  All in all, this is an exceptionally delivered opening sequence, before backtracking and telling the story entirely in flashback.  Laurence is a 35-year old award winning novelist and literature professor who asks his students questions like:  “Can one’s writing be great enough to exempt one from the rejection and ostracism that affects people who are different?” while Fred works as an assistant director in the movie industry.

All of Dolan’s films are comments on gay culture, where this one may dig the deepest, showing inconsistencies between the progressive idealization and the reality of everyday life, where the shallowness of looks and appearances somewhat unexpectedly is part of the equation, intruding into areas of desire.  The couple’s happiness is expressed early on through a black light sequence, Laurence Anyways - Club scene [The Cure - Funeral Party] (1:25), where the untapped joy, energy and exuberance can be unnerving and a bit overwhelming, appearing larger than life, until out of nowhere, on Fred’s birthday, Laurence announces he’s been living a lie, that he can’t go on living as a man anymore, knowing in his soul that he was always meant to be woman, comparing it to holding one’s breath underwater for over 30 years, finally allowed to surface for air.  Initially, finding this outrageous, Fred is aghast and thinks nothing could be more cruel, but soon comes around to realizing that whatever it is, irrespective of the abject negativity Laurence has received from both families, especially Fred’s bitchy sister, Monia Chokri, a dour picture throughout of pessimism and gloom, deciding she needs to be there for Laurence, becoming her biggest supporter, helping her through the transition with hair, makeup and clothing.  After a few failed attempts, Laurence arrives in the classroom dressed as a woman, to a pall of silence, broken finally by a question asked about homework, but the state of mind is sumptuously revealed to the music of Headman’s “Moisture (Headman Club Mix)” Laurence Anyways (2012) Best Scene YouTube (2:33).

Despite the cruel difficulties that Laurence must endure, where prejudice contributes to a whopping 41% attempted suicide rate among the transgendered, even worse for non-whites or those living outside metropolitan areas, the film exhibits various stages of shaky confidence, where her life is never trouble free, including getting the crap beat out of her, exactly as portrayed in Fassbinder’s mother of all transgender films, In a Year of 13 Moons (In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden... (1978), it also leads to a mental breakdown of sorts from Fred, who is ill-prepared to handle such a major psychological change, as she feels her life literally coming apart, where the camera follows each of them as they go their separate ways, feeling a bit like the tragic end of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cher... (1964), where another all-consuming love gets lost and slowly fades from view, yet remains very much alive in the minds and imaginations of the viewing audience.  Fred’s re-entry into fashionable high society is expressed in a surreal entrance to an extravagant society ball, where she literally floats into the party, to the music of Visage’s “Fade to Grey” Laurence Anyways - Scène du Bal - YouTube (2:58), where the director can be seen lighting a cigarette at 17 seconds.  Laurence maintains a somewhat masculine look and retreats into the fringe regions of transgender society, including a family of aging drag queens and burlesque singers that feel right out of a Fellini movie, preferring a self-imposed isolation where she can write and heal her own wounds. 

Perhaps the scene of the film is set to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, a composition of manic and furious energy, where after continually being denied entrance back to her parent’s house, for fear of how this radical transformation might effect her father, she finally returns to the front door drenched in a downpour of rain, a truly pathetic sight, where her mother, a picture of chilly, overcontrolled perfection as played by the stately Nathalie Baye, simply can endure no more, picking up the television that her husband is continually planted in front of and slams it to the ground, inviting Laurence into the doorway in full view of her father, deciding straightaway to get a divorce, where her life will forever include the daughter she never had.  For Laurence and Fred, however, attempts to stay together do not end so well, where we are treated to an emotional blitzkrieg of accusations and confessional outpourings, with an incendiary performance by Suzanne Clément (showing at least a dozen different hairstyles) that should elevate her to the cover of fashion magazines and star status, where she ferociously defends the man/woman she loves, Laurence Anyways - Restaurant Scene (English Subtitle) YouTube (2:31), utterly confused herself by what it all means, where Dolan repeatedly drags us through the mud of hopeless despair, rubbing our noses in the derailed aftereffects of a broken romance, until sheer exasperation drives them away.  While they do briefly reunite years later, expressed with a giddy Surrealist happiness in the winter snow, Laurence Anyways - Ile au Noir scene (1:48), it quickly fades again into a distant memory, as the film is about how brutally hard it is to survive loving someone, where Dolan’s brilliance in depicting an aura of love transcends the transgender story of what it means to be your true self, as the film ends on a beautiful grace note back at the beginning, with a door opening at the first sparks of love, when “everything was strange and new.”