lefkiosvanrooy
Les amours imaginaires is more of an artistic endeavour rather than a film of much substance. In this film, Dolan gets to showcase his various directorial tricks which include long slow-motion shots with electrifying and captivating music playing over, flashing lights that display a scene as if it's taken out of a music video. These tricks however, as visually appealing and intriguing as they are to watch, do not do much to help this otherwise fairly empty plot and minimal character development. Essentially, Dolan has created a very pretty and stylish film about 2 people that infatuate over a boy, who continues to lead them on throughout the film only to finally come to the realisation he wasn't interested in them at all. The degree of obsession these characters develop for this guy, to the point where it turns them bitter and spiteful to each other, makes these characters slightly pathetic and unappealing especially given the fact that none of the 2 manage to develop any kind of actual chemistry or friendship with this person. On top of that the reason behind Nicolas' (the source of infatuation) over-the-top playfulness and flirtatiousness that ends up misguiding our characters in regards to his feelings towards them is never truly explained or justified. What are the reasons for this guy befriending these 2 people to this extent when none of the 2 seem to be any fun to hang out with? Having said this, the main positive aspect of the movie is that it provides a platform for the director to showcase his many talents using vibrant colours and scenery as well as elegant camera angles and shots. The movie is almost entirely comprised of musical clips, that feature the characters in slow motion shots and allow the director to express himself through hipsteristic styles (vibrant, eccentric costumes and highly stylistic sets) while still managing to bring out a bit of the characters' personalities and motivations, giving an artistic edge and aesthetic to this film that stays with you after it's finished. Note: It is interesting to see how Dolan is influenced by other directors and how small integral parts of other films he admires get embedded into his own films; His character in this movie for example expresses his disdain towards Nicolas at the end of the film in a very similar way to River Phoenix's character in My Own Private Idaho in the café scene.
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
paul2001sw-1
'Heartbeats' is a fun little film, a sort of Gallic rom-com, although don't expect the obligatory happy-ending where the two protagonists rejected in love hook up with each other. A simple story of unrequited love and ordinary obsessiveness, the film cuts to the chase in spite of its good looking characters and chic vibe: we're not all equally attractive, and we don't love another in equal amounts. The rejecter in this story doesn't even do anything particularly wrong, except treat others with a combination of openness and carelessness that is surely only natural when blessed with a certain type of good looks. The film's resolution of his hitherto ambiguous sexuality is clever, and the film as a whole is brilliantly orchestrated with a collection of popular songs, from different eras, each of which nonetheless is particularly chosen to fit a certain mood and to complement the images on screen at that time. Oddly, in spite of the emotional pain its characters are in, this film is a stylised paean to being young, beautiful and in love: the fact that it hurts only makes it sweeter.
