(Canada/France,
105 min.)
Dir. Xavier
Dolan, Writ. Xavier Dolan, Michel Marc Bouchard
Starring: Xavier Dolan, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Lise Roy,
Evelyne Brochu
Programme: Special Presentations (North American Premiere)
Xavier Dolan, the wunderkind of Québécois queer cinema, does
a surprising turn of form in his fourth feature Tom at the Farm. Dolan strips away much of the visual audaciousness
that, for better or for worse, defines the young auteur for a new generation of viewers. Some film fans, including
this reviewer, found Dolan’s first three films to favour style over substance
(not always, though), so it’s a pleasant surprise that Tom at the Farm sees Dolan make unexpected use of minimalism as he
changes gears and delivers a haunting love story set in rural Québec.
Tom at the Farm is
a wildly convoluted film nevertheless as Tom (played by Dolan) leaves Montreal
for the countryside to attend the funeral of his recently deceased boyfriend
Guillaume. Guillaume’s mother, played by Lise Roy, didn’t know he was gay, so
doesn’t acknowledge (or even suspect?) that Tom might be the lover she was
hoping to meet. It’s no wonder that Guillaume fled for the city, as his family
is a wicked bunch. His brother, Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), acts most inhospitably
towards Tom and bullies him with homophobic hatred that pressures him to stay
on the farm to help keep up appearances. Francis, a latent homosexual, assumes
a creepy kind of control over Tom that is a mix of rage and attraction.
The execution of Tom
at the Farm is never really believable, especially since Tom’s slip into
Stockholm syndrome is so abrupt that the film as a whole never really
convinces. (It’s not like Adele’s melancholy longing in Labor Day.) Dolan, on the other hand, makes provocative use of
genre as he crafts a psychological thriller about the fear of coming out in
small communities where nobody has secrets and everyone is a devotee of the
Catholic Church. The less-is-more approach of Dolan’s style in Tom is equally effective, as the
director’s flair for arresting compositions makes excellent use of the dreary
Quebec landscape and removes any hint of romanticism one might have for quaint
country living.
The only echoes of Dolan’s excessive stylishness can be
found in the exquisitely, if gratingly, overwrought score by Gabriel Yared,
which builds Tom’s inner turmoil with unrelenting chords. Other soundtrack
choices are spot-on, though, especially a great French cover of “The Windmills
of Your Mind” that opens the film and an appearance of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses
at Night” that is delightfully incongruous. Tom
at the Farm finds its most Dolan-esque moment in an odd dance number
between Tom and Francis that forms the film’s cinematic centrepiece. It’s an uncomfortable
tango between imprisonment and desire, equally ludicrous and effective. Oh, and
Tom at the Farm also includes an
abundance of close-ups of the director’s own face as he trains the camera on
the film’s protagonist. It’s a tactic that one could easily confuse for
narcissism; however, it’s better taken as proof of a filmmaker’s expression of
his own character’s interiority.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
