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Barbarian
Reuniting the cast of his earlier Decline Of The American Empire, Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand constructs a bittersweet tale that acknowledges death and celebrates life
A self-styled hedonist and "sensual socialist", fiftysomething academic R??my (Girard) lies dying of cancer in an overcrowded Montreal hospital. At his bedside is his ex-wife Louise (Berryman). She's soon joined by his estranged son S??bastien (Rousseau) and fianc??e Ga??lle (Hands), as well as R??my's former lovers, mistresses and devoted friends from the Left. An international banker, S??bastien has the wherewithal to grease various palms, ensuring that his dad gets a private room and, via childhood friend Nathalie (Croze), a supply of heroin for pain relief. R??my, however, wonders whether he has left any useful mark on the world, and ponders the fate of the literary and political culture to which he devoted his energies. In an era of American imperialistic hegemony, does the future now belong to such unintellectual arch-capitalists as his own son? Given that The Barbarian Invasions concerns an individual's terminal illness, some might be surprised by the acerbic humour in Arcand's screenplay. The targets are numerous - hospital bureaucracy, union corruption, the crumbling welfare state, the Roman Catholic Church, the dumbing-down of Western societies, even Godard's Maoist tendencies (which got in the way of R??my's tryst with a Chinese woman). There's a memorable sequence where S??bastien visits a police station to enquire about the best area in town to buy illegal narcotics. The importance of cinematic images in shaping our private fantasies is recognised, and there's an appealing ruefulness in the way the middle-aged characters look back on the belief systems they adopted to explain the world. Despite the engaging performances of Girard and his fellow cast members, The Barbarian Invasions feels too smoothly polished in its depiction of a man's final days. The father-son resolution seems unearned, and whilst Marie-Jos??e Croze may have won the Best Actress Award at Cannes in 2003, her guardian angel is particularly problematic, a junkie whose addiction hasn't affected her generous heart or her serene beauty. Verdict The Barbarian Invasion works better as comedy than as drama, its ultimate impact marred by sentimentality. |
