dcannon I have a high tolerance for "serious" gay films, but this one is unforgivable. The story is preposterous; are we really expected to believe that a bishop could be held captive in a prison confessional and forced to watch a play that re-enacts a crucial event in his boyhood? The decision to have the women's roles played by men is just plain ridiculous. And the way it milks the cliché that love between men must always end in death and betrayal does nothing to advance gay cinema. The two boys, however, are quite pretty. But the actor playing the adult Simon bears no resemblance to the young Simon. As a boy, Simon has a peachy, creamy complexion; as an adult, he bears the obvious signs of severe acne. This is just one of many implausibilities in this deeply silly film.

nycritic 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.

gradyharp LILIES, based on a Canadian play 'Les feluettes' by Michel Marc Bouchard, has been adapted to the screen by Bouchard and placed in the sensitive hands of director John Greyson, an artist who is able to indulge in surrealism with reality and make it work well. This very beautiful film is cast entirely with men despite the fact that there are women roles in the story. How does he make that work successfully without pandering to artiness? View this little film and make the discovery for your self.Set in Quebec in a prison, Bishop Bilodeau (Marcel Sabourin) has been summoned form the outside to hear the confession of 'a very sick man' who has been imprisoned for 40 years for a murder. Upon the Bishop's arrival the audience knows something is amiss: despite the atmosphere of the prison as a stage accompanied by choral singing of plainsong (The Hilliard Ensemble) there are props and images that seem out of place in a grim prison. The Bishop is ushered into the confessional booth and when he opens the window to hear confession, the person in the seat is Simon (Aubert Pallascio) the 'very sick' man who has planned for the bishop to watch a play depicting the 40 year old crime - a reverse on the confessional stance.Through a small aperture in the bishop's now locked confessional, the Bishop is forced to watch a reenactment of the incident 40 years ago when two young boys, Simon (Jason Cadieux) and Vallier (Danny Gilmore) were in love and the young future Bishop (Matthew Ferguson) was jealous of Vallier's attention from Simon and played a key role in 'murder' of Vallier that resulted in Simon's being accused and imprisoned. The atmosphere leading up to this act includes the reaction from the small town's homophobia and to Simon's sexual ambiguity that involves a strange lady Lydie-Anne (Alexander Chapman) who arrives form Paris via an air balloon. It is the interaction of the boys with the townsfolk, the new lady arrival who desires Simon's affections, and Vallier's understanding and self-sacrificing mother Countess De Tilly (Brent Carver) that leads to the fateful death of Simon. How the story ends in the confessional booth reversal is the beauty of the film that must be left unsaid for the drama to affect potential audiences of this movie.The cast is all male because the whole story is a mise-en-scene, a play within a play, where all parts are acted by the prisoners for the sake of displaying truth to the Bishop. There is no pretense at making the men look like women except for the costumes and this enhances the message of the story. The actors are excellent and the impact of the story is powerful. Yes, this is a highly honored gay-themed film, but it is really more about the power of love both in youths and in thwarted adults that makes it a film for all audiences. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp

Hanno Wupper Difficult? In the first dialog in the confessional it is explained clearly which two of the young men in the play are the two old men in the confessional. If you miss this, the plot is difficult to figure out. If you pay attention at that crucial moment, the movie is not difficult to understand at all.Gay? Yes, we see gay young men loving each other. Does that make a 'gay movie'? It is a strong story, and it could not have happened like this in a purely heterosexual setting. If you find this enough to label it as a 'gay movie' (and restrict it distribution to the gay subculture), go ahead!The form. Nobodu has commented so far on the brilliant form. Watching the movie is like listening to a fugue by J. S. Bach. It is light and beautiful, entertaining and touching, but when you start to concentrate on the form you will get more and more excited about how clever it has been put together.We see the martyr of St. Sebastian. No, not what happened really to Sebastian, we see the legend of the Catholic Church. No, we rather see a play about it written by an eccentric priest in 1914. Or rather the play as it had been rehearsed in a Canadian school. No, the play as it is memorized by one of the participants, 40 years later. Or rather a play performed by prisoners who do their best to bring those memories on the improvised stage. Then it blends into the thoughts of another one of the participants, 40 years ago, who in the meantime has become a bishop. And then we see the feelings about it all on the bishop's face.These layers continuously melt into each other in a very artistic way. Sometimes you are in the Bishops brain, sometime in a Canadian hotel of 1914, sometimes in a prison in 1954.