Friday, April 27, 2012

ATTN: XAVIER DOLAN...

I realize the chances of Xavier Dolan, a recent favorite here at PINNLAND EMPIRE, ever reading this is pretty slim but its worth a try (and hey...this blog managed to get the attention of figures like Ted Hope and Monte Hellman, so who knows?) I guess its pretty arrogant of me, some random guy with a movie blog who's never directed or written a film in his life, to suggest a movie project to a popular, talented, young, up & coming director like Xavier Dolan who's probably got plenty of movie ideas of his own, but I just see him making a film on a certain subject. Call it a gut feeling. A few years ago Law & Order: SVU based one of their episodes off of the infamous John/Joan case. For those of you unfamiliar with this case, its the story of a Canadian twin infant boy who was raised as a female due to a botched circumcision that burned off the majority of his penis when he was a newborn. To avoid future embarrassment and humiliation, the parents thought it was best to raise the male baby as a girl and started giving him hormone pills at a very young age. Years later the truth was revealed to the twin that "she" was really a he. He continued to live out the rest of his life as a man before eventually committing suicide (a few weeks later his twin brother committed suicide as well further proving the unspoken connection that twins have with one another). That's just the basic story. It gets a lot deeper (...wikipedia). As we all know there's only so much depth Law & Order can get in to when they only have one hour (with commercials) to tell a story, so a few things were left out and "rounded up". But after seeing that episode (which was still very good, don't get me wrong), I thought that this story should be made in to a film. At first I thought this story had David Cronenberg's name written all over it. Its a Canadian story about body mutilation (a botched circumcision) as well as body transformation (going from living as one sex to another). There's also elements of sexuality and sexual discovery in the John/Joan case due to the very controversial psychiatrist that the twins went to visit on the regular. Even if you know very little about Cronenberg you know enough to know that all of these elements fit right in with the rest of his filmography. But then I remembered he made 'Dead Ringers' which is damn near the same story (another twisted & true story about a set of twin brothers who end up killing themselves). Not only that, he also made 'M Butterfly' a few years after that (both films starring Jeremy Irons) which also delves into similar territory. So I crossed Cronenberg's name off the list. Then I thought of Todd Haynes. Hes no stranger to the realm of sexuality and sexual exploration among children ('Dottie Gets Spanked') or biopics/true stories ('I'm Not There' and 'Velvet Goldmine'). I'm actually still not completely ruling Haynes out. I'm just not sure I want his stylish touch, which we saw in his previous biopics, to take over the actual story of the John/Joan case (Gus Van Sant wouldn't be a bad choice either). But after watching the trailer for Dolan's new film; 'Laurence Anyways', it just clicked. Xavier Dolan should do a film about John & Joan. I don't even completely know why I'm so set on him directing this outside of the fact that I've become a huge fan of his in a short period of time, hes Canadian and hes explored elements and themes in his last three films that go hand in hand with the John/Joan story. In 'I Killed My Mother' he delves in to the complicated and twisted relationships that can occur between parents and their children, with 'Heartbeats' we had a gay/straight/confused love triangle between a gay male, a straight woman and a straight/borderline-metrosexual male. And his latest film looks like it dives head first in to the world of transgendered men and women. So not only would this adaptation fit with the rest if his work but it would be new territory for the young director to explore (working with child actors, adapting a true story, etc). So if any of you who read this blog on the regular that happen to know Dolan personally (which is probably none of you) could you pass this on to him? I think we got a hit on our hands!




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