The fact is, there’s never been anyone like Xavier Dolan in the history of Quebec cinema: 25-years-old, five films in five years, the latest one, Mommy, an award-winner at Cannes, and the recipient of nine trophies at the Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Dolan is a peripatetic writer-director who engages in just about every aspect of a project: he produces, edits, designs costumes, and oversees the promotion. Obviously hard working and totally committed, he is also a playful young man who sparkles with glamour. An actor since childhood, Dolan has star power that seduces both the media and the public. He’s an original who never spouts the political, social, and creative philosophy platitudes typical of certain Quebec filmmakers gone by.
Not only was Mommy the year’s biggest artistic success, and the year’s top money-earner, Dolan is now poised to jump to another level with his first English-language picture, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, which he wrote with another young actor-writer-director, Jacob Tierney. The movie will star Jessica Chastain, who has befriended Dolan, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, and Kit Harington, (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones). It’s a huge turning point for an artist who is firing on all cylinders, and there’s never been a Jutra moment like this before.
After a few Jutras that didn’t go to Mommy, Dolan won for Best Screenplay. On stage he appeared subdued and serious in a dark suit, thanking his father, an Egyptian-born actor and calling his Quebecoise mother his “inspiration.”
Another unusual feature of the 2015 Prix-Jutra was the fact that Dolan competed against himself with his darkly comic thriller, Tomà la ferme, which took a best The Best Supporting Actor prize for Pierre-Yves Cardinal.
One of the evening’s emotional highlights was Anne Dorval’s onstage appearance. Close to Dolan, and the woman he has called his muse since their first collaboration in I Killed My Mother, she tearfully thanked him for “everything you gave me.” For sure, Dolan’s uncanny ability to work with actors has unleashed her talent. “She wanted to do something as far away as possible from my first film and from herself,” Dolan told me when Mommy screened at TIFF. And certainly the emotionally volatile, working class, spike heels and tight jeans-wearing eternal teenager she plays in Mommy is far removed from Dorval’s real life as an Outremont artiste.
The Ricardo Trogi feature 1987 picked up three Jutras for Best Artistic Direction, Best Costumes and Best Hair. It was nominated for Best Picture as was the black and white Tu dors Nicole, honoured with Jutra Awards for Best Sound and Best Original Music.