‘Matthias & Maxime’ film overview: Kiss of affection

Music fills in probably the most tender moments of Matthias & Maxime; surfaces to fill within the silences and to speak advanced feelings; acts as a window to peep into the minds of the first characters and gauge their temperament. When they’re at their loneliest, it’s the soundtrack that kisses them with consolation and heat. Xavier Dolan’s selection of music at applicable intervals is as tender because the movie’s theme: sexual orientation.

How does one conform to their sexual identification? Positive, it’s an summary feeling that you simply develop and nurture over a interval. However how does one uncover and undergo that inward feeling? You possibly can faux to reside the lifetime of a heterosexual man, satisfied of your orientation till a possibility presents itself — “Other than the beard and all that masculine bulls***, who actually is aware of what’s underneath?” says a personality in Matthias & Maxime, and the way true.

In some circumstances, this sense might blossom from a contact, a gaze, or from mere bodily attraction. Or from a kiss, just like the one shared by the protagonists of Matthias & Maxime (performed by Gabriel D’Almeida and Xavier Dolan) who consent to make out for a brief movie, which is each “impressionistic and expressionistic” on the identical time, like their conflicting sexual identities. What’s all of the fuss? It’s only a kiss, in any case. Not that it’s their first, anyway. “Keep in mind the one time we kissed in highschool,” asks Max to Matt, who cuts him off with out denying the fees.

Though Dolan prepares you for the supposedly “massive” second within the movie, he resists displaying their intimacy for show, cautiously avoiding a voyeuristic gaze; it’s a fleeting second which passes like daisies kissing, however the emotions it leaves on the 2 seemingly-heterosexual males are deep. He doesn’t present the kiss. As an alternative, the scene is reduce to Matt taking a swim within the close by lake, drowning himself in a pool of self-doubt. However solely we all know that he’s swimming towards one thing that’s way more inner. It’s a masterstroke by the filmmaker.

Each Matt and Max look like metrosexuals at first and the previous, actually, has a girlfriend. They know one another out and in and share a dynamic similar to Dany and Karl from the ‘Placing Vipers’ episode from Black Mirrors. There, we noticed two heterosexual males growing attraction for each other, albeit over a VR sport. However the collection by no means actually cared to discover what this sense meant and the way it impacts their private lives. That’s exactly what Xavier Dolan has focussed on in Matthias & Maxime, blurring the traditional strains of male friendship.

They bottle up emotion, additional resulting in anger and angst. We see their minds consistently oscillating between what the center desires and what the thoughts rejects — most of which is seen via Matt’s viewpoint. As an alternative of confronting his newfound emotions for Max, Matt represses them altogether. The extra he does, the extra it destroys him. It’s Max who escapes unscathed, for, he appears to be the one unaffected by the kiss, for probably the most half.

Dolan’s characters, in essence, are unstable and we by no means know after they would let free the craze they’ve constructed inside. There’s a cause for his or her anger; it stems from poor financial circumstances and typically, from sheer helplessness. Like his earlier movies, there’s a tendency to vilify the mom character (performed by Anne Dorval but once more). Right here too, Dolan shares a chilly, abusive relationship with the mom, however not like his I Killed My Mom or Mommy, the presence of Dorval’s character hardly is smart, not to mention being efficient. Her character as a divorced, foul-mouthed, self-loathing junkie has little to no relevance within the movie.

In a means, you might argue that Max and his mom are an extension of the characters Dolan and Dorval performed within the filmmaker’s semi-autobiographical work, I Killed My Mom. Solely this time, he reveals commendable management as an actor, greater than a filmmaker. Equally comfy is Gabriel who provides a reliable efficiency as Matt, particularly within the scene the place he provides a super-awkward farewell speech for Max. You possibly can actually see the extension of his thoughts, in that scene.

Matthias & Maxime doesn’t transcend what it quietly establishes within the preliminary parts. Which is why when the movie redeems itself in direction of the tip, you might be not sure whether or not to cheer for the characters’ triumph or to surprise aloud at what lies forward.

“Typically you spend your life doing one factor and in the long run, you realise it wasn’t your factor,” remarks a personality. Maybe, in some circumstances, the street to self-discovery is value greater than the precise discovery.

Matthias & Maxime is streaming on Mubi India