New on Blu-ray and DVD 10/8 is Laurence Anyways, the brilliant new film from Xavier Dolan (Heartbeats). It is currently available on Cable VOD and will come to online VOD later in the year.

A selection of the opening lines of Laurence Anyways reads like this:

“What are you looking for, Laurence Alia?

I’m looking for a person who understands my language and speaks it. A person who, without being a pariah, will question not only the rights and the value of the marginalized, but also those of the people who claim to be normal.”

Dolan’s ambitious third feature stumbles, like its main character, through Laurence's transformation from man to woman. It’s messy and overlong but much more brave and worthwhile than most films you’ll see this year.

In French Canada during the late 1980s, Laurence and Frederique (Fred) fall for one another. However after a period of dating, Laurence tells her that he wants to become woman. Their decade long struggle ensues.

When Laurence tells her of his ambivalence towards his gender, she says, “Everything I love about you, you hate.” They are each faced with the deep pain of this predicament. He, after being vulnerable about his identity, is rejected by the woman he loves. She is humiliated by his violation of her vulnerable love for him. It’s easier to sympathize with Laurence, but it should be noted that Fred is being told by the person she loves, that he does not love that part of himself that she is deeply attached to. I feel both of their immense pain.

I could never tell exactly what Fred is thinking. She either loves Laurence, male or female, and isn’t brave enough to face society's rejection of him, or she doesn’t love Laurence but can’t face herself for rejecting him based on his new gender preference.

Early on, Fred tells her sister: “Our generation can take this. We’re ready for it”

Later in the film, we discover how unready she was. She flips out and screams at the waitress in a crowded restaurant, upset by the waitress’ prying questions about Laurence. Afterwards, she says to Laurence while running away from him, “Between you and me, who really needs to be fixed?” The answer to this question is clear, despite Fred’s assertion. Laurence knows her own identity, but Fred is lost.  

Laurence Anyways won Best Actress in the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, as well as Best Canadian Feature at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Aspects of it will frustrate you, like the overwhelming length and prevalence of artsy shots that sometimes feel forced. That may matter to you during the film and right after, but not next week. Next week you’ll remember the humanity, the struggle we all face between the aspects of us that make us normal and those that push us into the margins, and that’s what really matters.

Grade: A-

Mother of George explores a Nigerian couple living in Brooklyn, struggling to conceive a child. Dosunmu (Restless City) shows the classic, but still intriguing tension between traditional roots and contemporary culture, in this case being Nigerian roots and Brooklyn culture. At a deeper level, as Dosunmu puts it, Mother of George is about “…love, innocence, trust, tradition, custom, history.”

The heart of conflict in the film centers on the couple’s inability to conceive, since using modern doctors violates tradition. The husband is unwilling to meet with a doctor to be tested for fertility. As usual, the woman is held responsible for all problems, including ones she can’t control. Powered by love, she must find a solution. Difficult decisions and tense situations ensue.

The film won the Best Cinematography prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Dosunmu is not interested in Hollywood-style elevated realities. He lets the camera watch characters sit with the decisions they’ve made and the ones they’re about to make. I love this style, of letting people simply exist. While a very different film, I praised other Sundance dramatic feature Afternoon Delight for the same strength earlier this year. Dosunmu really cares about his characters, you can sense it from the images and camera movement.

I respect Mother of George for the issues it tackles and the artistry it employs, but I could not connect. It’s definitely a film that I had to wade through, but it was worth the effort.

Grade: B

A few weeks ago, as Gravity was making its festival rounds, James Cameron called it “the greatest space movie ever made.” Say what you will about Avatar, but the man knows his interstellar cinema like Peter Jackson knows Middle Earth. After seeing Alfonso Cuarón’s previous directorial effort Children of Men, my anticipation was extremely high for his follow up. Gravity not only met, but exceeded my expectations to a point that I didn’t know existed. It manages to immerse the audience with its top-notch cinematography and performances in a way that I’ve never seen before.

George Clooney and Sandra Bullock play Matt Kowalski and Dr. Ryan Stone, respectively. Kowalski is a veteran astronaut while Stone is on her very first mission. The banter between them is absolutely fantastic, never feeling forced or unnecessary. Clooney also provides a lot of great comedic relief when things go horribly wrong. Within minutes of the film’s opening, debris from a satellite crashes into their space shuttle and sends the mission into chaos. To say more than that would give away too much, but suffice it to say that though Clooney’s performance is fantastic, this is truly Sandra Bullock’s movie. After sitting through The Blind Side, a special brand of hatred for her performances was born inside me; her inclusion in this film was my only reservation about its merit. However, I am prepared to take back every negative thing I’ve said about her in the wake of this stunning performance. Gravity will be a huge contender at this year’s Academy Awards and I believe that Bullock’s performance has a great chance at earning her a second Oscar (and first she truly deserves).

Doctors say that to cure a disease, one must appreciate how complicated and advanced it is. Gravity's cinematography works in a similar way; it makes the most deadly force of the film look absolutely breathtaking. The film treats the vastness of space with the same reverence that a western treats Californian vistas. A single lingering shot opens the movie and lasts for twenty minutes, introducing the audience to the beautiful setting of the film, then almost immediately after, the film ups the ante and makes this seemingly tranquil setting horrifying. Emmanuel Lubezki, a five-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer, deserves an Oscar this year even more than Sandra Bullock.

Enough movies have been made about space that if you ask the average moviegoer about space, they’ll have a pretty good idea about the science behind zero-gravity and pressurization and the like. Gravity immediately takes those expectations and destroys them (in the very first minutes of the movie) in the most unsettling way possible. Whereas space was once a place for spaceships to fire lasers and save princesses in the B-movies of yesteryear, Gravity portrays the universe the way it truly is: an uninhabitable vacuum that will either boil your blood or freeze you to death.  What Gravity does so effectively is show that despite the scientific advancements we’ve made in the last century, we are still at the mercy of nature. It is a story of Man vs. Nature in the most extreme way possible and, ultimately, a tale of hope, loss, and human determination.

I wholeheartedly agree with James Cameron’s claim. Gravity is a beautiful gem of a film that is truly the greatest space movie ever made.

Grade: A+