Monday, July 23, 2012
TRIANGULATIONS
Today's gay film is the Quebecois' Xavier Dolan's second film
Les amours imaginaires / Heartbeats (2010)
Also a NYTimes Critics' Pick. Lots of prizes.
I think they should have translated the french title directly. Imaginary loves. Exactly.
A young gay man and his girl friend fall for a guy who gives off ambivalent signals about his sexual identity. If any.
They chase, together and apart. He teases or perhaps just enjoys the attention.
This is all amid a youth culture in which no one, it seems, can figure out how to get a relationship going. A greek chorus of young men and women tell of their own aborted loves. Funny. Very funny.
The question is which will happen first. Will Nico, the idol, pick one of them, both of them, drop out of the picture? Will the finally flush him into making a choice?
There are many laughs. Many discoveries in small gestures. Dolan wrote, directed and even did the costumes for this. He is, indeed, the gay guy, the co-star.
I love these Quebecois productions. There is less inhibition probably because the industry there is small and independent. A smaller, more appreciative audience for the native product. New French.
I liked this a lot. It has the nice feel of a new generation's hand on the wheel. And a solid grounding in the people who came before. There is a scene with three in a bed which, except for gender assortment, is iconic in the works of Truffaut and even more recently Honoré. Totally French, this small wave.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5 as I definitely want to see it again.
