In this blog post, I’ll be analyzing the opening scene of I Killed My Mother, written and directed by Xavier Dolan.
The film starts with a quote by Guy de Maupassant “we love our mother unknowingly, and only realize how deep-rooted love is at the ultimate separation”. The quote goes against the name of the film, creating certain confusions, but will later be explained through Hubert’s internal journey.
In the black and white monologue of the protagonist Hubert, he expresses his animosity towards his mother and reveals that their relationship was better when he was younger. The black and white color scheme adds to the intimacy of Hubert’s confession while establishing the semi-biographical atmosphere of the film.
There are many extreme close-ups of Hubert’s eyes in the scene and the rest of the film. The close-ups on the eyes are a very intimate method of communicating his emotions to the audience. The audience is led to sympathize with Hubert though what he says about his mother seems to be a bit immature. And to believe that there must be a reason behind his abhorrence towards his mother.
The montage of the butterflies and little angel sculptures serves as a metaphor of their relationship as both are related to the Christian religion. In the Christian belief, butterflies are a symbol of resurrection, which implies the relationship between Hubert and his mother deteriorates to its worst ever before they find common ground and realize the mother-son bond is strong enough to break all the barriers between them. The little angels usually represent angelic innocence in the Christian religion, which could suggest Hubert’s early years in his childhood before he started to detest his mother and everything she does.
The intercut of the close up of Hubert’s eye twitching and the close up of his mother’s mouth indicates that Hubert finds anything the his mother does annoying and intolerable, exhibiting the fragile relationship between them in which Hubert is alway at the verge of anger and attempts to infuriate his mother to start a quarrel.
The lighting in the dining room scene is very warm and mellow, creating a oil-on-canvas look, which to some extent, resembles the Baroque oil paintings on biblical stories. Hubert’s half-nakedness also resembles the nudity of gods and goddesses in lots of Baroque art. A sense of religiousness is displayed through out the lighting and color schemes.
The use of symmetry in most of the frames symbolizes that the two characters are equally dominant in the relationship and no one gives way to the other.