Love him or hate him (and the camps are pretty divided), Xavier Dolan is a phenom. His latest, Tom at the Farm, doesn’t quite work though, although there are some weird undercurrents I liked. Also it looks fantastic.
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// Love him or hate him (and I know folks who do both) //
Do you mean, at the same time? Or do you know people who love him and people who hate him?
I feel like here, in Montreal, we are not authorized to hate, or even just dislike him.
Edited for clarity!
Yeah, some love him, some HAAAAATE him with a burning passion. It’s kind of interesting to watch the conversations.
I find him fascinating somehow. Not crazy about his movies yet – but he, the person, is interesting. He’s just so damn young.
Or maybe he, the person, isn’t interesting at all. He can also seem super narcissistic and self-important. Brooding around with his Cocteau tattoos up and down his arm.
Still, I think there’s something there.
My friend Dan interviewed him a while back (Dan is also a wonderful writer) – so it’s well worth a look!
http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/enfant-wonderful-on-heartbeats-and-xavier-dolan
As I prefer loving than hating, I’d like to like him, but… the more I see and read about him, the harder his persona makes it (the interview made me want to know more about Dan, not Dolan). It’s not helped by the fact that I was sort of forced to watch Laurence Anyways by people who decided that if I didn’t like it, it’s because I’m too dumb to appreciate it.