"Is it possible to love without asking ourselves questions about our sexuality?" This is what Xavier Dolan is exploring in his newest film "Matthias et Maxime." The Canadian filmmaker chatted with Brut at Festival de Cannes about sexuality, gender, and love.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Is it possible to love without questioning our sexuality?
00:08What is it like to be a man?
00:10What is it like to be a woman?
00:12What is it like to be homosexual?
00:13What is it like to be heterosexual?
00:14What is it like to be a woman?
00:28I've lived this all my life.
00:30I've lived with the sexual ambiguity of men all my twenties.
00:36Without ever being able to figure out what we were,
00:40with people who wanted to live their sexuality with me,
00:44but in secret, who wanted to explore it,
00:46but who felt ashamed of it, uncomfortable.
00:49It was important for me to finally talk about it in a film,
00:53from a cathartic point of view,
00:56but also because I realize that my generation
01:02is quite different from the younger generation
01:06in terms of the fluidity of gender, of sexuality.
01:10The film is also born from a conversation I had with Catherine,
01:13where I told her,
01:15you know, when you and I graduated from high school,
01:18a man who kissed a man was gay,
01:21and a man who kissed a woman was heterosexual,
01:23and it wasn't that complicated.
01:26And the strength is to see that nature is constantly evolving,
01:34and I find that my generation is almost at the same level
01:36as the younger generation.
01:38Our notions, the notions we've been taught,
01:42often toxic, about masculinity,
01:46sexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality,
01:49this way of ghettoizing each gender,
01:51each gesture, each sexuality,
01:53of categorizing them, let's say, rather than ghettoizing,
01:55sorry, categorizing.
01:57It's something I've lived with all my life,
02:00at a time when other people live much more easily
02:03with the younger ones,
02:05the real new youth is inspiring in its freedom,
02:11but it's also counterproductive at times,
02:14for us who have, I have the impression,
02:17blockages, at least me, who feel that I have blockages.
02:20The openness of mind, the flexibility, the fluidity
02:22with which this younger generation approaches
02:25gender, sexuality, their identity,
02:29is new for us.
02:31To question what was acquired,
02:33to question the order of things,
02:35is always complex for anyone, I think.
02:38There's a line in the film that was cut,
02:41where Max's character said he felt old,
02:43and his friend Frank said to him,
02:45but no, you're not old, you're just 30,
02:47we're still young.
02:49And he said, yes, we're still young,
02:51but we're not the young ones anymore.
02:54It sums up how I feel.