Time has come to dedicate a few lines about the enfant prodige of contemporary cinema: Xavier Dolan. The definition enfant prodige may seem nothing more than an interactive nickname but behind it a considerable truth is actually hiding. His directorial career started in fact at nineteen preceeded by a thrilling acting experience. Since 1994, at just five years old Xavier takes part to a television series which over the years willallow his growth from actor to all-round artist.

Xavier Dolan was born in Montreal in 1989 from an actor father and a teacher mother. His film training began in fact in the early years of his life, Xavier appearing in numerous commercials and in some small television productions. 

His first real moment of glory takes place in 2008 with a play in Martyrs, a Canadian horror which immediately became a cult for lovers of the genre. This great interpretation experience allows him to start working on his first film, this time behind the camera.

And so, the following year J’ai tué ma merè (I killed my mother) debuts in theaters. The film written, directed and also interpreted by the enfant prodige immediately manages to compete at numerous festivals, obtaining almost thirty nominations and no less than 13 victories, several of which at the Cannes Film Festival. This debut work can almost be described as an autobiography though already presenting several elements characterizing Dolan’s future cinema.

J’ai tué ma mere is, in fact, the story of a homosexual boy living a confrontational relationship with his mother. We will find the parents/children relationship analysis permeating almost all of Dolan’s subsequent production. For the Montreal filmmaker the mother, indeed understood as a parent, but also in a broader sense as the family, is intended as every conflict’s the starting point often manifesting as an existential communication incapacity.

This deeply intimate and dramatic reading will find a new form in Laurence anyways, the account of a decade of love between a M to F transsexual and her partner. Laurence Anyways is an inflammable burst of joy, acceptance, love and strength in many occasions mixed by feelings of misunderstanding, violence and despair. Suchdirector’s second work is a very strong and certainly one of the most loaded and upsetting movies of Dolan’s filmography which introduces a new element, breifly mentioned in his first work: the outsider ‘s story. Dolan gives voice to people on the margins of society, bullied homosexuals and transsexuals expressing freedom and vitality through Dolan’s extremely poetic and aesthetic vision. Identity is created by diversity as well asthrough painful existence.

This first stage of art, widely recognized by critics and the public, finds its peak in 2014, the year when Mommy gets to theatres. 

The story is very simply and sparsly told. Once again we have a difficult mother-child relationship to which a third character is added, their neighbor, who will create a new balance in the couple. The film, strongly aesthetic is almost in its entirety shot in the unconventional 1:1 cinema format.

This film, is not only a representative manifesto of Dolan’s cinema, it also manages to enter the seventh art history for the director ‘s accuracy. Particularly in the final scene, where the protagonist with an arms movement will in fact change from 1: 1 to 16:9 the movie format. In that moment the Dolan breached the meta cinema barrier of the creating a real narration behind the story, where the format itself represents the narrow superstructures imposed by the cruel contemporary society. Through  the soundtrack ranging from classic to pop music and a strongly aesthetic approach we can view the themes so dear to the Canadian director brought to exaggeration. What we are talking about is in fact a film that, despite the essential plot, manages to deal with very strong issues in a veiled, delicate and above all simple way.

But the formal and substantial Dolan research surely does not stop with Mommy, in the following years, in fact, the director also works with the music video world where his trademark is easily revealed just to mention Indochine College Boy and Hello from Adele.

In spite of the extraordinary success, which includes the Cannes’ Jury Grand Prix, obtained with his later movie, Dolan’s following work, despite, will be no less acclaimed. Juste la fin du monde (It’s only the end of the world) in fact lands to theatres in 2016. It’s the story of a homosexual theatre director returning home to reveal his poor health and near death. Once again we see the family, with its love, as well as violence, being the cause of a strong lack of communication.

To end it is appropriate, to briefly analyze the visual taste which has always strongly characterized all of the enfant prodige’s work, from cinema to video clips. Dolan’s world view is made up of contrasts and excesses (life and death, freedom and social constraints) which are also expressed at photographic level by alternating long and dispersive to very narrow shots aimed at recapturing the characters’ soul. Not only: color and music use are other essential elements of Dolan’s cinema, which in this case also lives of contrasts and excesses. We move from mainstream to the most experimental music in the same way every work is permeated by a strong and preponderant chromatic charge turning from death’s cold colors to a warmer and more energetic palette.

Dolan’s cinema is a whirlwind of emotions drastically detaching from entertainment cinema to put us in close contact with our deepest feelings.