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THE
BARBARIAN INVASIONS
7/10
Les invasions
barbares aka Invasion of the Barbarians : Canada (Can/Fr)
2003 : Denys ARCAND : 99 mins (domestic version 111 mins)
The Canadian
entry for this year’s foreign-language Oscar (Arcand being Quebecois),
The Barbarian Invasions is the kind of intelligent, mature, well-made,
tragedy-tinged comedy that might just go down a storm well with the Academy
selection panel. If, that is, they don’t mind that the facts that (a)
euthanasia is endorsed (and practiced), (b) heroin is endorsed (and used)
as a very effective painkiller, (c) it’s all very left-of-centre and at
times explicitly anti-Bushist, (d) palm-greasing corruption goes unpunished,
(e) it’s all talk talk talk from beginning to end, nearly all of which
is left-of-centre, a fair amount explicitly anti-Bushish and (f) it’s
a sort-of-sequel to Arcand’s 1986 foreign-language nominee, The Decline
of the American Empire - which they may or may not have seen, and
which some may confuse with Penelope Spheeris’ 1980s documentaries The
Decline of Western Civilization.
The Cannes
jurors obviously had no such qualms, naming Invasions as one of
only three prize-worthy movies at this year’s Competition (alongside Elephant
and Distant): Arcand won best screenplay, and Marie-Josee Croze
won best actress. The latter seems a slightly perverse decision: not because
Croze isn’t good (she’s fine), but because hers is emphatically a relatively
minor supporting role in a large ensemble clustering around the central
figure of Remy (Remy Girard), a history professor whose friends and family
rally round when he’s diagnosed with a terminal illness. The jury, bombarded
with Miramax’s Dogville hype and keen to tweak the nose of ‘Von’
Trier, were clearly looking for an ‘ABN’ candidate: Anyone But Nicole.
Leaving aside
the Croze-Kidman politicking, few could have cavilled at Arcand’s script
honour. He may not be any particular visual stylist, and at times relies
on slightly manipulative soundtrack muzak (score by Pierre Aviat). But
he crafted an ambitious but accessible screenplay, and orchestrated an
entirely ‘up for it’ group of actors, resulting in a film that simultaneously
ballsy and wistful, stimulating, funny and surprisingly moving: Squarely
and refreshingly aimed at adult – even perhaps ‘mature’ – audiences, it
seems certain to rack up nice business in college towns and cities worldwide.
This isn’t
for everyone, of course – it is, of course, as one unimpressed internet
reviewer snarled, “about bourgeois, for bourgeois, by bourgeois.” And
the under-30s may perhaps be left cold - but they’re more than adequately
catered for elsewhere. It’s true that the more similarities the viewer
has to the characters, the more they’ll get out of the movie – you don’t
have to be a sixtyish, left-leaning, anti-clerical, French-Canadian
intellectual to fully appreciate The Barbarian Invasions, but it’ll
certainly help if you fall into one or two of those categories.
While Decline
focussed almost exclusively on Remy and his immediate circle, Invasions
include the next generation: joining Remy’s ex-wife Louise (Dorothee
Berryman) and various colleagues and/or lovers trading epigrams and bons
mots at his bedside are his rich “capitalist” son Sebastien (Stephane
Rousseau) and Stephane’s fiancee Gaelle (Marina Hands). And when Remy
is moved from hospital to a serene lakeside retreat for his final days,
the group are joined by Sebastian’s old friend Nathalie (Croze), whose
knowledge of narcotics proves crucial in easing Remy towards oblivion…
Not that Remy
‘goes gently’: in a terrific performance from Girard, the old lecher is
acerbic and erudite to the last, despairing the philistinism of youth
while simultaneously reaping the benefits of their practicality - Sebastien
greases various palms to obtain his dad more comfortable hospital surroundings,
and Nathalie deploys a different kind of expertise to alleviate his painful
symptoms. Such touches are typical of Arcand’s generous, even-handed approach
– he scathingly presents the Canadian Catholic church as generally ineffectual
and moribund, but then show us a nun, Sister Constance (Johanne Marie
Tremblay), who’s just about the only caring and competent person to be
found anywhere in the otherwise farcically incompetent Montreal General
Hospital.
Remy and company
realise that their kind of ‘1968’ radicalism is now just another page
in the history books, superseded by the cataclysmic upheavals of September
11th 2001 – which, Remy believes, herald the ‘invasions’ referred
to in the sardonic title. They’re all eloquently dismayed at how things
have turned out, as represented by the socialised, impractical, crumbling
Canadian NHS. But, like their Spanish equivalents in Achero Manas’ November,
they cling proudly to the flames of idealism even in what must seem the
darkest of dark times.
13th
November, 2003
(seen 29th October : Odeon West End, London – London
Film Festival)
click
here for a full list of films covered at the 2003 London Film Festival
click
here for the full list of films entered for the 2003-4 Foreign-Language
Oscar
by Neil
Young
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