{"id":7437,"date":"2010-02-20T15:45:19","date_gmt":"2010-02-20T23:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7437"},"modified":"2010-02-20T16:52:50","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T00:52:50","slug":"i-killed-my-mother-xavier-dolan-2009-canada-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7437","title":{"rendered":"I Killed My Mother (Xavier Dolan, 2009): Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 J’ai Tue Ma Mere or I Killed My Mother<\/a> <\/em>\u00a0is a\u00a0complex title.\u00a0 Far deeper and\u00a0more intense than what the audience initially expects.\u00a0 We watch a young man emerge from his teenage angst as he screams hostilities towards his mother, yet\u00a0as the story unravels we begin to see his actions not only\u00a0from his own\u00a0point of view, but also his mother’s point of view through his eyes.<\/p>\n

Hubert Minel (Xavier Dolan) is a typical high school student.\u00a0 He has\u00a0lived with his divorced mother Chantale (Anne Dorval) since he was a very young boy, with very little guidance or support from his father.\u00a0 Hubert is torn between a love\/hate relationship with Chantale, whose taste he despises, but whose understanding he requires.<\/p>\n

Hubert is intelligent and artistic, yet he can’t help but direct his teenage anger and self-loathing towards his mom.\u00a0 Chantale is hard-working and fairly supportive, she tolerates his high-strung ways and hopes that in time it’ll pass.<\/p>\n

A lot of Hubert’s frustration stems from the fact that he is homosexual, yet he can’t communicate this and\u00a0his mother doesn’t see it.\u00a0 She abruptly finds out through a third party.\u00a0 Shocked, it takes awhile for Chantale to regain her composure, until she realizes it was\u00a0apparent all along.\u00a0 Hubert can communicate all sorts of vile assertions at Chantale except for this one truth.\u00a0 She admits to Hubert her knowledge of his\u00a0secret and\u00a0confesses her hurt\u00a0of Hubert’s mistrust in her.<\/p>\n

The only way to describe Anne Dorval, whose performance is both powerful and subtle, is to say she is this generation’s Shirley MacLaine.\u00a0 Complete with perky facial gestures, witty composure and sensitive responses – at one point, a school headmaster gives Chantale really asinine parental advice, to which she listens patiently and\u00a0re-directs a verbal tirade at him.<\/p>\n

Despite the \u00a0intensity of Hubert yelling “I hate you” or “you’re disgusting” at his mother, he really does love her and is devoted to her – Dolan actually slows the speed down several times in the film to give us\u00a0insight into\u00a0Hubert’s\u00a0reflection of his own\u00a0actions, and at one point cleverly\u00a0rewinds, hoping to change the course of his futile behavior.\u00a0 The deep love Chantale feels for her son is displayed in a verbal epiphany, not for the characters so much as for the audience – threatening accusations at his mother, Hubert proclaims “what would you do if I died today?”\u00a0 To which Chantale softly responds “I’d die tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

This film is semi-autobiographical, and marks\u00a0Dolan’s debut as a director.\u00a0\u00a0At 20, his\u00a0work is exceptional as writer, director, producer and the lead actor in the film.\u00a0 It’s no wonder he is the recipient of several Film Festival awards, with 3 from Cannes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. \u00a0 J’ai Tue Ma Mere or I Killed My Mother \u00a0is a\u00a0complex title.\u00a0 Far deeper and\u00a0more intense than what the audience initially expects.\u00a0 We watch a young man emerge from his teenage angst as he screams hostilities towards his mother, yet\u00a0as the story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}