pyrocitor
Too often, crucial nuance is lost in translation for English-speaking audiences, and 21-year old French-Canadian Xavier Dolan's second film as writer/director/star/costume designer (all right, we get it ) is a perfect example. While its English title, Heartbeats, is appropriately poetic and fluttery, its original French title, Les Amours Imaginaires, ("The Imaginary Loves"), is so on-point it verges on a spoiler warning. But what isn't lost in translation is Dolan's keen, immaculate talent, and his rare foray into comparative levity - "romantic comedy" by way of cattiness and heartbreak - may be frothier than his average fare, but it's infectiously watchable, and wickedly amusing. Dolan is clearly enamoured with early François Truffaut: his debut, I Killed My Mother, is a direct shout out to The 400 Blows, while Heartbeats is unapologetically a functional remake of Jules & Jim's steadily imploding friendship-turned-love-triangle. There's a deliberateness to this comparison, however, as Dolan employs this juxtaposition between the Bohemian-chic of WWI- era France and 21st century Montreal hipster culture to tease out the timelessness of love, lust, and folly in ambiguously intimate friendships. The ensuing proceedings are as delightfully droll as you'd expect, as Dolan deftly dances back and forth between his two lust-struck protagonists, forcing viewers to continuously reconsider their sympathies and allegiances as each sequence is filtered through their alternating points of view. The film feels almost tangibly laden with sexual tension, but Dolan continually, increasingly challenges us: is this the case, or is it a case of our protagonists (or we, the viewers) misguidedly supplying it? Thankfully, Dolan proceeds through this murder mystery of flirtation with a teasing playfulness. His outlandishly hip stylistics - scenes lit in bold, single-colour pastel lighting; snarky, Wong-Kar Wai style slow-mo walking sequences coupled with a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down" as leitmotif (though a cameo of House of Pain's "Jump Around" is more fun); at one point a character is even showered in slow-motion falling marshmallows - set the tone perfectly: suave, artsy, and only retroactively coded as self-reflexively tongue-in-cheek. For those who didn't wear their $455 tangerine cashmere sweaters to the screening, the film may skirt the line of becoming too insufferably hipster to bear (a poem penned on a typewriter mailed in a black envelope with a wax seal? Please ) if satire - occasionally excruciatingly awkwardly so - isn't your strong suit. It isn't helped by a second act lag, as the initial smiles prompted by the characters' brewing hysterics fade somewhat. But have patience: confident as they may seem, the proceedings and characters are meant to play as human, but still ridiculous, and we're given sneaky reminders along the way to tide us by. Finally, just when we feel like our sympathies, such as they are, have finally settled by the film's climax, Dolan, with another neat, hilarious reversal, turns the tables, and ties it all together with a Forever 21 bow, complete with a sublime 'anti-moral' that brings cringes and laughs in equal measures. Dolan's mediation of himself as star is droll in itself – amusingly, he initially makes no pretence at unbiased treatment of which 'team' viewers are invited to cheer for, though ripples invite sympathy or scorn for all parties involved through. Regardless, Dolan's acting proves just as committed as his directorial work – passionately emotive, with a bold anti-charisma alternatively sweet and pathetic, and replete with the subtlest tics to convey volumes of awkwardness or loneliness. Monia Chokri is somewhat less accessible, but still gives a boldly cold, clipped performance, her reserve and stylishly antiquated wardrobe serving as protective armour, fiercely conveying her longing in a deeply rooted, if not always wholly sympathetic, fashion. Finally, as the object of their affections, Niels Schneider pitches his cheeky, ambiguously alluring charm exactly right, and managing to convey a surprising amount of paradoxical sentiments with one cryptic phrase: "Love me or leave me." To ride out a metaphor Dolan would doubtlessly detest, Heartbeats is a macaron of a movie: colourful, sweet, chic, and deceptively dense, but a fleeting, albeit delicious, trifle. It's lots of fun, immaculately constructed, and containing plenty of hearty character beats, but its deliberately shallow plot doesn't keep up with its stylizations enough for it to linger as much as some of Dolan's meatier, more serious work. Still, 'fun' is a crucially rare word in most critically regarded Canadian cinema, so, for this alone, Heartbeats is a worthwhile and highly enjoyable outing by one of the most promising contemporary voices in the industry. If this is Dolan's indictment on contemporary youth culture, I'd be terrified to see his take on senior citizenhood, a-la Amour -8/10
Tim Kidner
I love the pace and styling of this modernisation (perhaps) of Jules et Jim. I love the hyper-sensed colouration and classy music-video slo- mo's, with the characters holding their lofty pretty heads even higher, set to a beautifully hip soundtrack.Moni Chakri, the elegant brunette, who loves Audrey Hepburn is Dolan's character's best friend; hanging out and sharing moments, rather like Will and Grace. When cherubic, blonde curly haired Neils Schreider lands in their pretty laps, all sorts of questions about sexuality are thrown open and explored. It's all done with dignity and poise; no-one screams or hits anyone.22 year old director Xavier Dolan, (who also stars) for this French- Canadian feature, has got his designer eyes set firmly on indulgence and unpretentious superficiality. Sexual rather than explicit, it is never rude and no one farts, pukes or is seen going to the toilet. These people are to be seen rather than to 'be'; their fairly shallow lives are ones filled with fairly petty annoyances, rather than life and death scenarios. Sadly, the viewer doesn't really get to like them enough to care too much, though maybe surprisingly, they weren't as precocious or annoying as they could have been. I adopted an approach of just letting the rich visuals and sensual music flow gently over me, rather like chocolate sauce slowly rolling in folds down a steamed pudding. Nothing knew is said either and perhaps this helps; anything jarring or monumentally profound would be just too much and spoil the pleasure. Not that it's quaint or twee, mind you but this is definitely bespoke designer fitted kitchen drama rather anything to do with an actual sink.
