Generation XYZ: Style over substance

7. 7. 2010 / Ema Čulík

The rest of the film shows them both awkwardly competing with each other and trying to make him fall in love with them: in the countryside, at the theatre, sleeping three in a bed together. When Francis and Marie end up on the forest floor wrestling amongst the fallen leaves over him, Nicolas finally has enough and drops them. Months pass and both of them try to get back in touch, only to be told, "Sorry, I've got to go, I've left something on the stove..." A year later, they've finally got over him, only to both fall for another sculpted beauty.

The story is simple, it's well-known and not very surprising, but what is interesting about this film is the visual style. The director, Xavier Dolan, who also played Francis, uses a style heavily influenced by the 1960s new-wave, with stylish music, slow motion, the camera caressing the characters' skin (because no one else will), colour filters, graphic composition. All these techniques are used to good effect to express (at first glance, it seems) the longing felt by the characters, as they refer back to old movies where love and sex were still portrayed in cinema slightly less cynically. But then, the colour filters of red blue yellow green used in the scenes where the lonely pair turn to one-night-stands for comfort remind me of the party scene at the start of Godard's Pierrot le Fou. The guests at the party spout out clichés -- the women talk about washing powder and hairspray, the men about racecars. I wonder if Dolan is making a comment on the emptiness of Francis and Marie's encounters -- or was he just trying to be cool?

I wonder, because throughout the film I kept worrying about the balance of style and substance. There is a very great deal of attention paid to clothes, hair, music, details of interior design. All the people in the film are incredibly trendy and like all the 'right' stuff; if they want to offend each other, they criticise their clothes -- ah, the ultimate insult!

The focus on the superficial elements of the film mirrors the superficiality of Francis and Marie. If Nicolas hadn't been so drop-dead-gorgeous, they would never have even noticed him. Their love is entirely imaginary. Watching their comings and goings, their angst and sighs, one gets quite frustrated quite quickly. 'Imaginary' is a perfect way to describe their 'love', as there is nothing honest about it at all. They do not know him, apart from his dark eyes and golden curls. What he does and says appears to have no effect on them. It seems that the only people they are in love with are themselves. Too shallow and impatient to really connect with another person, they fall in love with an idea. The story is interspersed with the testimonies of other twenty-somethings and their misadventures in love. What unites all these people is that they are young, good-looking, self-important, self-obsessed and quite alone. Their words complement the story of Francis, Marie and Nicolas perfectly, as they show the same disregard for the feelings of others, the same focus on their own superficial interests (getting laid, being adored, not losing face).

On the whole we get a very sad story about young people today, and not the one described in the blurb of this film -- of the loneliness of young people -- but of their shallowness and self-destructiveness. It is clear that the makers of this film based it on their own circles, where people do put so much effort into their image and get seduced by superficial things. This film appears to use form and style to parody this shallowness. I hope that the audiences at Cannes, and the viewers today at KV who cheered at this film liked it for its satire, its parody, its self-mockery, and not just for the stylishness.

P.S. I'm so glad I'm not hip.

Vytisknout