It begins like a modern-day vampire movie; eye-line closeups of gawking spectators intercut with low-angle views — taken from behind so as to obscure the face — of a woman clad in tasteful business attire striding purposefully amid misty cityscapes. Is it writer-director Xavier Dolan’s desire to depict a transexual as a monster? Flash back ten years and our heroine is a man named Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) who stands before a classroom lecturing students on examples of rejection and ostracism in classic literature. Can it get much more self-indulgent? Hopefully, yes, for nothing succeeds like excess in Dolan’s world. Shot full frame and in colors that make Douglas Sirk’s output at Universal look achromatic, this almost-three-hour epic melodrama about a budding filmmaker (Suzanne Clément) and her transwoman fiancé trying to attain the unattainable is this year’s most moving love story. With Nathalie Baye and Yves Jacques. (2012) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.