Thursday 29 November 2012

REVIEW - LAURENCE ANYWAYS


Running for most of three hours, Xavier Dolan's third film as director is a moribund, monotonous drag (no pun intended), a chronicle of an unconventional relationship related in a conventional, uninvolving style. In fact, it's less a chronicle of a relationship than an examination of its two participants - even when they appear to be in harmony with each other, Dolan's focus is centred on them as individuals. Melvil Poupaud and Suzanne Clement display quite a lot of chemistry, and dig in deep to their roles, acting with the right amount of intensity. They don't once go over the top, although Dolan doesn't let them - his film is restrained to a fault, as he stretches it out in a futile attempt to convey the magnitude of this relationship in all its extraordinary complexity. But what magnitude? Close, honest relationships are intrinsically intimate, yet Dolan's depiction of this one is bloated and dreary. There's a framing device involving a journalist that suggests an epic biopic - this is not a radical decision, it is a misguided one. There are few genres in art as wretched as the epic biopic. He might as well have made Laurence Anyways a Western, or a Grand Guignol horror; it would have been more inappropriate, and perhaps a lot more fun because of that. The film does awake from its slumber on brief, sparsely-distributed occasions to exhibit a little life: the Roses are fun characters, and Dolan's soundtrack choices are super. He is on top form when dealing with people like these, the substance of his filmmaking seems to reflect the substance of his script, and herein lies the issue. Unhappy, bored, frustrated people living unhappy, boring, frustrating lives result, in Dolan's hands, in an unhappy, boring, frustrating film.

1 comment:

  1. I watched this film yesterday, and couldn't help crying my eyes out. I found it extremely well-made, well-acted and the music choice,as you have already put it, is superb. At first, I was a bit annoyed with the main character played by Poupaud, but then I realised that Laurence transformation should reflect the reality, and not another Hollywood movie where everything is picture perfect. Throughout the film Laurence was and still is a man dressed as a woman in the eyes of society and no matter what he does he still will be perceived as one,a man dressed as a woman. It is artfully demonstrated in the film, e.g. in the final scene Laurence, already a woman, is being interviewed by a female journalist and she can't look straight at Laurence's eyes. Is it not so in the real life? Don't we get a bit uneasy when we see a transsexual on the street? This feeling that there is something wrong with this 'woman', does it not enters our minds? Speaking of Fred played superbly by Suzanne Clement, one of the best performances this year, she embodies a woman in love who thinks she is strong enough to go through this difficult journey, just because she is passionately in love with Laurence, however, it is not up to her and all those social difficulties she faces makes her surrender despite the fact that she is still deeply in love with Laurence-a-man and not Laurence-a-woman. A story of love, passion, struggle, emotions, in short a story of unconventional relationship that ends up with broken hearts. This film shows us that believing that you may overcome all those obstacles that arise in your path of life sometimes fail.
    PS The bar scene is so strong, so emotionally difficult to handle, that your eyes sink in a flood of your tears.

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