For fans of Christophe Honoré, some may recall his Cannes Competition entry ‘Sorry Angel' from a few years back. When the film initially premiered, many claimed the picture to be one of his stronger directorial efforts, after a filmography of tepid releases. This was a significant turning point for the acclaimed director. He was placed on the world stage, in full view of the international film community with a project distinctly commenting and empathising with France's sociological view on the AIDS epidemic. Many cited the film as an insightful learning tool; a work infused with impactful humanism. For my own two cents, Sorry Angel was a tender and boastfully queer story about camaraderie and love. Honoré's filmography tends to recall his own observations and his nation's past — each endeavour amounting towards a clearer image of his own sexuality and the coalition of his perceptions. Since the release of Sorry Angel, Honoré has continued to dabble in his meta-text. His films often recall the past in some shape or form, even through a directorial scope. The aesthetics of the French New Wave come to mind with his aimless narratives and filtered pastiche.
His latest work entitled ‘Winter Boy' perfectly compiles the more significant footnotes of a typical Honoré production; a tender tale of self-destruction & grief told with a patient pace. In a press release from the Toronto International Film Festival, the selection committee claimed that Winter Boy was his most autobiographical film to date. Instead of a prevalent focus on the sociological factors of the AIDS crisis, his latest feature focuses on a topic correlated with self-harm, mental health, and its subsequent services. Winter Boy doesn't hold back from its graphic depictions, as Honoré has created a piece dedicated to a personal form of recollection.

His painful experiences are meteoric, as there's an implicit subtext found within the visual text. Winter Boy prominently features two distinct tints within the artificially imposed colour-correction — a light pink and a baby-blue hue. The colours are distinctly infantile, constantly inventing a parallel between the protagonist's own internalised repression and his impulsive habits. As a result, the conversion of colour signifies a rebirth for the film's adorable lead Lucas and his adjacent affirmations regarding his sexuality. The locations also contribute to the film's exhausting prevalence of mourning; the snow interlinked with the malleability of ash. As per the title of the film, Honoré suggests another resurrection; a story of a child transitioning to manhood and his abandonment of empathy in the face of his father's death. There are various complex signifiers intertwined in this grandiose autobiographical journey, as the film is riddled with personal cues to Honoré's bank of half-forgotten memories.
The film loses some footing in its heavy-hearted opening, as the film breaks the fourth wall with a three-point lit exertion of angsty narration. Winter Boy edges between the confounding border of disingenuous melodrama and self-imposed meta-text. The film eventually abandons its theatrical endeavours and delineating subplots, where Honoré instead transitions towards a more conventional and cohesive dialogue-driven feature. There's plenty of personal upheaval to cover in Honoré's circuitous return to the silver-screen. Winter Boy is ultimately messy, but moving. Love prevails, with a narrative self-contained in the unabashedly gay upbringing & legacy of a Parisian auteur.
