I Killed My Mother

"We love our mothers almost unknowingly, unconsciously, and we fully realise how deep-rooted that love is when we come to the last separation." Guy de Maupassant

 

Hubert Minel doesn’t love his mother. The seventeen-year-old regards her with haughty contempt, and sees only her dated sweaters, kitsch decorations and the breadcrumbs that get stuck on the corner of her lips when she munches. In addition to these irritating surface details, there are also the cherished family mechanisms of manipulation and guilt. Confused by a love/hate relationship which obsesses him more and more each day, and desperate to escape the suffocating atmosphere of his mother’s working-class, suburban home, Hubert drifts through the mysteries of an adolescence both marginal and typical: artistic discoveries, illicit experiences, the opening-up to friendship, sex, and ostracism.

 

The directing debut of young French-Canadian actor Xavier Dolan is a cathartic, fiercely compelling evocation of turbulent late adolescence. Visually stunning, with exquisite performances from Dolan himself – as the volatile, verbally savage Hubert – and a highly acclaimed cast including Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément, I Killed My Mother was the winner of 22 international film awards in 2009, including three categories at Cannes.

 

This film is available for non-theatrical bookings. If you run a film society and you wish to organise a screening of this film, please contact info@bffs.org.uk, who will be happy to discuss this with you further.