When you think of Xavier Dolan, I assume you think, “Oh yeah, the guy who did the voice of Ron Weasley in the French dubs of the ‘Harry Potter‘ films.” I know I do. But seriously, Dolan is also a director of some note, who at the age of 24 is about to release his fourth film, following on from the well-regarded pieces “I Killed My Mother,” “Heartbeats” and “Laurence Anyways.”
The new one is “Tom At The Farm,” starring Dolan in the title role as a young man whose visit to a farm for a funeral turns into an extended, and deeply unpleasant, stay. And clip has landed online, while we ourselves have a review from the film’s recent premiere in Venice. It’s a pretty interesting clip too, a dose of old-style what’s-in-the-cornfields fear (something Dolan is eminently well-prepared for, of course, having dubbed Ron Weasley in “Half-Blood Prince”’s very own scary cornfields scene).
But this clip also brings the scare via the malevolent magic of cinema: there’s some technical weirdness going on here that adds to the unsettling feel by fiddling with the aspect ratio and introducing strange sounds in the edit: why can we hear running water? Along with the tender, intimate violence of the clip, the whole package is deeply creepy, and whets our appetite further. We’ll let you know when it gets a distribution deal. Until then, don’t go out into the fields alone. [Bleeding Cool]