I Killed My Mother

French Canadian writer, director and former child star, Xavier Dolan makes his debut at MIFF with his first feature, I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mère). Dolan has described the film as semi-autobiographical and is based on the events of his late teens and mainly his tumultuous relationship with his mother.

Dolan plays Hubert, a 16 year old boy living in suburban Montreal with his mother, whom he can’t stand. Even the way she eats her breakfast irritates Hubert. They argue constantly, in the car on the way to school, at home at the dinner table, any chance Hubert can get to be a spoilt brat towards his mother, he takes it. Which is what, I think, confused me most about this film.

Dolan wrote, directed and starred in the film, which is the true story of his relationship with his mother, his feelings towards her and the way he was raised. So why has he portrayed himself as such a little shit? Is this what he actually set out to do? Is he aware of how he is coming across? If that was his intention, then I take my hat off to him.

Hubert’s mother, Chantal is actually a very sympathetic character. A single mother whose only joys are watching TV, playing solitaire and going to the tanning salon with her garish tracksuit wearing gal pal, you do feel quite sorry for Chantal and the life she leads. When Chantal try’s to engage in conversation with her son, she is told what a bad mother she is. I’m not pretending I haven’t at times been frustrated with my mother, and as Hubert aptly points out in one of his asides to the camera, every human has felt that at one point, if it was only for a moment or for a whole year, but the way Hubert carries on and treats Chantal is so incredibly frustrating. Throughout the film there is a sense of Dolan trying to portray himself as being the victim, that it was his mother’s fault that he was so horrid to her, which is never actually portrayed in the film. There is seemingly no motive to why he is a rude snarling shit apart from hormones. Which I get, because hey, as a teenager, I was exactly the same to my mother.

So I guess that’s my main problem with this film, it was not clearly defined for me what Dolan was trying to depict with this film. Being part autobiographical also apparently gives you an excuse to big note yourself. I found I Killed My Mother, in parts, to be very self indulgent. There is a scene where Hubert’s art teacher commends him for a painting he is working on and there’s a quip by his boyfriend about how brilliant an artist he is, yet we never see the painting. Its like, don’t big note yourself in the script, then not show the audience. There’s a painful scene of Hubert and his boyfriend Antonin painting an office in the style of Jackson Pollock. A lot of slow motion shots of paint splattering against a wall and dripping down as Hubert and Antonin proceed to have sex on the office floor. The paint dripping down the wall may as well have been Dolans jizz dripping down his audiences face, because he’s basically just wanked off in front of everyone. The other annoying, self indulgent scene occurs when Hubert goes out to a club, again, the slow motion is used and a sweet vaguely twee song accompanies it, in comparison to the stark strobe lights of the club. It was just slightly out of place in terms of the narrative and was a little “Look at me; I’m so arty and trendy hipster”.

Having said all this however, there are some beautiful moments of the film, that I did really enjoy. Dolan really expresses a knack for witty dialogue within his script. There is an utterly amazing scene where Chantal has a complete nervous break down on the phone to the principal of Hubert’s boarding school. The rant which goes for a steady 5 minutes is Chantal letting out all the pent up frustration and abuse laden upon her by her ungrateful son, and is beautifully realised. There is also a witty scene, where Hubert having taken drugs for the first time, goes home to tell his Mum how much he loves her.



I also enjoyed the fact that not a massive deal was made about Hubert’s coming out to his mother, or her realisation that her son was in fact homosexual. Like other coming of age films, it would be depicted as some sort of inner struggle, but Dolan portrays Hubert as having already accepted it and it does not cause large waves within his tiny fish pond, which I think is a really admiral approach to the old inner turmoil of coming out story line.

Dolan does use Slow Motion a lot in the film, as annoying as the aforementioned moments were, there are some beautiful ones too; Hubert running from Chantal in the school corridors, a shop window smashing. He also at the beginning used quick cuts of signature items to establish character or setting; several shots of James Dean posters establish Antonins bedroom etc. These to me were all Dolan’s directorial motifs, which I expect to see in future films.

Being his first film, I find myself forcing myself to not be too critical. Dolan was 19 when he made the film, and is still finding his feet, developing his trademark style, but there’s no doubt about it, the boy has talent. He can write a fairly decent script, which has wit and emotion, all though he could develop his characters a little more. He has good technique with directing, although is a little self indulgent and a lot of his scenes were far too dark (which I guess was cause he may not have had access to proper lighting…but still). The acting is good, mainly on Anne Dorval's portrayal of Chantal (Dorval is so incredibly remeniscent of Annette Benning). However, I am still not 100% sure on how I feel about the film. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. All I know is that I’m interested to see what else this trendy French Canadian babe (I forgot to mention he is a bit of a babe...) can produce next.

THREE STARS.