Never trust a confession that a childhood friend wants to make to you because more than likely it comes with an entire onslaught of a carefully planned stage adaptation of the reason he hates you so much. That's the blueprint for Michel Marc Bouchard's play of the same name. It at first looked, to me, to be a little stylized, like some of Marguerite Duras' short novels -- "The Ravishment of Lol Stein" for example -- but once the movie takes off, a thing that happens quite immediately, it draws you in.
A seamless transition from past events and the present, staged events in the prison facility where the older Bilodeau, now a Bishop, has gone to hear this confession, makes the entirety of the movie. LILIES evolves with the surety of a mystery even when we know something pretty bad has happened between the Bishop and the prisoner Simon who hates his guts, but it's like a marvelous puzzle worth solving -- you can't turn away.
It seems, in 1912, two boys loved each other very much. Simon and Vallier were carefree, mindless of what anyone else would think. Played by the young Canadian actors Jason Cadieux and Danny Gilmore, they look perfectly matched and complement each other, Cadieux being the more masculine and therefore dominant, Gilmore being the feminine, more malleable and romantic man, desperately and unabashedly in love.
But, as it goes with people in love (regardless the gender, I will always state that), there is always a monkey wrench. That is Bilodeau, a man with his own designs on Simon, who the very thought of him kissing another man drives him crazy with rage and who bellows left and right that the two of them are involved in something "sick and evil". Played by Matthew Ferguson, he makes you literally hate this character: his manic glee in denouncing their love, his "prayers" that Simon see the "error of his ways" are only matched by what I recall being Winona Ryder's ferocious performance in THE CRUCIBLE or Bonita Granville's openly evil character in THESE THREE.
In Bilodeau the film has its villain even when in the middle of the movie his character somewhat stands by the sidelines and watches the progressive separation between Simon and Vallier due to other circumstances. The arrival of a personality, Lydie-Anne (played by Alexander Chapman), and her subsequent engagement to Simon throws in a deeper wrench -- she is unaware of Simon's true desires, and even more unaware that Bilodeau is conspiring to do some grievous harm. Alexander Chapman is pretty compelling to watch as this socialite: I couldn't see a man in drag as much as a brittle woman who knew her way around people; seeing him play his male counterpart as events shift back to the present is watching a completely different person altogether.
The same can't go for Brent Carver who plays another prison inmate and the Countess de Lilly. As the Countess he comes across at times as a more subdued Katharine Hepburn in THE African QUEEN, but also as a man in drag. Even so, his is an interesting character to see because it requires a lot of control not to chew scenery when the opportunity presents itself -- which is often, especially in a scene involving some pretty sharp dialog exchanges with Chapman. Even so, his death scene is very moving, more so due to the circumstances in which it takes place. That it makes Valliers's and Simon's bond stronger is compelling.
Where I believe the movie -- and probably the play; I haven't read it so I must assume the movie is faithful to the material -- fails is at its climax. While I'm not surprised at the revelation of who the Bishop is -- many "men of the cloth" are little more than perverts usurping as the Voice of God because they can't face their own realities -- his own punishment comes off as vague. It's as if the movie didn't know how to exact justice against him. In my world, the Bishop would have been tormented until the skin would have peeled off his body -- eye for an eye. But maybe it's best to leave him alone. I can see why Simon even then wouldn't allow himself to dirty his hands with such human garbage. It would be best to let Life take care of this type of person; they always die alone and riddled with their inner cancer.
LILIES is a compelling watch. I loved its passion, its fearlessness in representing gay love, even at the moment of tragedy. Coming nine years prior to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN it should share the honor of being a movie that was aimed at an audience ready to accept men professing love to each other, free of self-loathing and cultural constraints.
A seamless transition from past events and the present, staged events in the prison facility where the older Bilodeau, now a Bishop, has gone to hear this confession, makes the entirety of the movie. LILIES evolves with the surety of a mystery even when we know something pretty bad has happened between the Bishop and the prisoner Simon who hates his guts, but it's like a marvelous puzzle worth solving -- you can't turn away.
It seems, in 1912, two boys loved each other very much. Simon and Vallier were carefree, mindless of what anyone else would think. Played by the young Canadian actors Jason Cadieux and Danny Gilmore, they look perfectly matched and complement each other, Cadieux being the more masculine and therefore dominant, Gilmore being the feminine, more malleable and romantic man, desperately and unabashedly in love.
But, as it goes with people in love (regardless the gender, I will always state that), there is always a monkey wrench. That is Bilodeau, a man with his own designs on Simon, who the very thought of him kissing another man drives him crazy with rage and who bellows left and right that the two of them are involved in something "sick and evil". Played by Matthew Ferguson, he makes you literally hate this character: his manic glee in denouncing their love, his "prayers" that Simon see the "error of his ways" are only matched by what I recall being Winona Ryder's ferocious performance in THE CRUCIBLE or Bonita Granville's openly evil character in THESE THREE.
In Bilodeau the film has its villain even when in the middle of the movie his character somewhat stands by the sidelines and watches the progressive separation between Simon and Vallier due to other circumstances. The arrival of a personality, Lydie-Anne (played by Alexander Chapman), and her subsequent engagement to Simon throws in a deeper wrench -- she is unaware of Simon's true desires, and even more unaware that Bilodeau is conspiring to do some grievous harm. Alexander Chapman is pretty compelling to watch as this socialite: I couldn't see a man in drag as much as a brittle woman who knew her way around people; seeing him play his male counterpart as events shift back to the present is watching a completely different person altogether.
The same can't go for Brent Carver who plays another prison inmate and the Countess de Lilly. As the Countess he comes across at times as a more subdued Katharine Hepburn in THE African QUEEN, but also as a man in drag. Even so, his is an interesting character to see because it requires a lot of control not to chew scenery when the opportunity presents itself -- which is often, especially in a scene involving some pretty sharp dialog exchanges with Chapman. Even so, his death scene is very moving, more so due to the circumstances in which it takes place. That it makes Valliers's and Simon's bond stronger is compelling.
Where I believe the movie -- and probably the play; I haven't read it so I must assume the movie is faithful to the material -- fails is at its climax. While I'm not surprised at the revelation of who the Bishop is -- many "men of the cloth" are little more than perverts usurping as the Voice of God because they can't face their own realities -- his own punishment comes off as vague. It's as if the movie didn't know how to exact justice against him. In my world, the Bishop would have been tormented until the skin would have peeled off his body -- eye for an eye. But maybe it's best to leave him alone. I can see why Simon even then wouldn't allow himself to dirty his hands with such human garbage. It would be best to let Life take care of this type of person; they always die alone and riddled with their inner cancer.
LILIES is a compelling watch. I loved its passion, its fearlessness in representing gay love, even at the moment of tragedy. Coming nine years prior to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN it should share the honor of being a movie that was aimed at an audience ready to accept men professing love to each other, free of self-loathing and cultural constraints.