Xavier Dolan: Tensions in contemporary bodies

Abstract

Through this paper we aim to analyze the films of Xavier Dolan. We are interested in this work since our belief rests in that it shows contemporary reflections on heterogeneous sexualities and their relations with the concepts of time and space from the perspective of filmmaking. It is there where we find the term “points de fuite”. Our corpus consists of four films. Inside them, we begin searching continuities and ruptures in his work. In this corpus we discover a key point in the construction of an own distinctive style. We consider the formal aspects of these films (genre and style, type of frames, camera movements, color treatment) in order to reach philosophical and political discussions that emerge from them. In order to do this, we look through the perspectives of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze respectively. A formal analysis can be separate from content analysis in our work, and at the same time every aesthetic decision has an ideological-political background related to their time. As Jacques Ranciere says: “Arts never lend to domination enterprises or emancipation enterprises more that what they can provide, that is, simply what they share with them: position and body movements, word functions, sensible and invisible repetitions" (Ranciere, 2014 [2000]: 27).