Recently, the much-publicized "The Death and Life of John Donovan", directed by Xavier Dolan, finally began to be released in limited editions in his hometown of Canada, which once again sparked a discussion about the young "film genius". Dolan, who is now just 30 years old, has been receiving attention in recent years, not only because of his handsome appearance, but also because of his experience of being shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Cannes Film Festival three times since 2014, and he has been favored by the festival's artistic director Fu Mao, almost becoming the "pro-son" of Cannes.
The Death and Life of John Donovan
In 2014, Dolan won the Jury Prize with a slight breakthrough in the form of "Mommy" and the French film "New Wave" standard-bearer, jean-Luc Godard, who was 84 years old at the time, and one old and one young person received the award on the same stage, and the scene could not be described as touching. The subsequent "Just the End of the World" (2016) allowed Dolan to win the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, just half a step away from the Palme d'Or. After this, Dolan devoted himself to the creation of "The Death and Life of John Donovan", but the film did not appear for a long time, and then there were rumors that Dolan encountered huge obstacles in the editing process. At that time, Dolan and his female lead actress Jessica Chastain took pictures of his sister and brother, but shortly after that, the director actually said on social platforms that the film deleted all of Chastain's scenes, and the difficulties of his creation can be seen.
People expected this film that suffered a major setback to be shortlisted for the main competition in Cannes, but it also ended in failure, and finally had to return to his hometown of the Toronto Film Festival in Canada for the premiere. This situation caused a lot of speculation, and people even thought that The artistic director of Cannes, Fu Mao, had abandoned the "pro-son". However, with the release of the main competition unit list in 2019, the doubts quickly subsided: Dolan was shortlisted again with "Matthias and Maxim". Although the film scored at the bottom of this year's Cannes Film Festival, the patience and confidence of the critics seem to have been worn out. It should be said that this defeat is not an accident, and the problems of Dolan's creation are traceable in "The Death and Life of John Donovan" and even earlier works.
From Dolan's recent works, we can see the consistent theme of his films- emotional relationships, which in turn include both blood and same-sex; the father is always absent in his films, and various other relationships are always awkward and difficult to reconcile (as if there is some kind of cause and effect between the two). Dolan's films not only have similar themes, but also have similar settings, such as "The Death and Life of John Donovan" and "Matthias and Maxime", which have a kind of "group chat scene" in both films. The director intends to use quick cuts to present the complex relationships of the characters at the party, giving the impression that they want to do their best in one battle. However, this kind of scene is basically nothing nutritious, and a lot of saliva lines and noisy characters can easily be upsetting.
But none of these are the most frightening, and even more frustrating is the increasing tendency towards self-indulgence in his films, which in The Death and Life of John Donovan can be said to have reached its extreme: in the face of the dismissive attitude of the interviewing reporters ("the small sadness of high society"), the adult protagonist Rupert firmly refutes it and conquers the other party with a simple set of words ("It's a story of prejudice, about an industry... So ignorant and narrow-minded... lasted for decades"—of course, we all know that this is a fact that does not need to be explained at all, a news that is not news at all). It can only be assumed that many Lan himself "conquered" others in life, but as a spectator, I only felt a kind of childishness that sprayed out.
Casting issues are also a key factor in John Donovan's many failures, especially under Dolan's big close-up, and Kit Harrington (who also played the most street-fighting character Snow in this year's HBO's most important street-fighting drama", Snow), has a stiff and numb facial expression that makes people lose the desire to watch, and even the 13-year-old actor Jacob Tremblay, who once shined in "The Room", has not yet done well.
Dolan loves film, and the high-contrast colors and lighting make the character's face full of drama. In fact, Dolan's characters are indeed very "grasping horses", it seems that in his films, the protagonist always has to have a few (foreseeable) emotional flashpoints, and he begins to quarrel and roar at every turn, until he reveals each other's scars, the dog is full of blood, and finally reconciles as before, which has become a major routine of Dolan-style images. From this point of view, the shortcomings of his film creation are very obvious: both the construction of the plot and the character of the characters are too thin, always lack of complex aspects, only frivolous, often let people play conflicts, which is also a big reason why people lose patience with his films. In his films, you can even see Dolan's deep misunderstanding of authorship—it seems that it is enough for him to tell a similar thing over and over again, but you can never see his further analysis and interpretation of emotional problems, and you can't see any variations of mother-child and same-sex relationships, all of which are almost only satisfied with a very single, narrow model, regardless of depth and breadth.
In short, you don't see Dolan's progress. Admittedly, this kind of stagnation or bottleneck is not uncommon in artistic creation, especially for experienced creators, but it happens to a newcomer born in 1989, which inevitably gives people the feeling of "Jiang Lang is exhausted". Also a re-creation of personal experience, "Pain and Glory", which was shortlisted for the main competition in Cannes this year, is obviously more touching, and the undercurrent under the calm is given by Almodóvar's unique life experience and his understanding of life. We are touched and sympathetic to Almodóvar's character, not because of the strong drama of his films, but because of his personal and open-mindedness, both sincere and cunning, free and restrained in his visual expression. It should be said that the great films in the world are no different, which involve the creator's thinking about content and form, the attitude and aesthetic concept of creation, but in the final analysis, it still points to how the creator observes and recognizes the world from a unique perspective, and ultimately points to some kind of "reality".
Blindly expressing personal interests, indulging in the quagmire of their own sensibility and unable to extricate themselves, is a common dilemma faced by young directors, and what is even more frightening is that this purpose is based on routines rather than personalities. Such a film can neither give people a sense of reality, nor can it make people feel profound, and in the end it can only be mediocre and superficial. From this point of view, Dolan really has a long way to go. He must unload his own baggage, enrich his dimension, and embrace the wider world. (Secretary of the Round Head)