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 Barbarian Invasions, The (2003)
Director:
Denys Arcand
Stars: Remy Girard, Stephane Rousseau
Release Company:
Miramax
MPAA Rating: R
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The Barbarian Invasions (Video Release)
Poster
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Facing Death squarely in the face and coming to grips with our failures
is no easy task—about as difficult as creating a provocative film about the subject without sinking into drivel and sentimentality. Yet this is exactly what Denys Arcand accomplishes in The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions Barbares), his best film since Jesus of Montreal (1989). Combining poignancy with intelligent humor, Arcand spins a scenario about an idealized death of an imperfect but very human soul that should have nearly everyone shedding satisfied tears.
At one level, self-described "sensualist, socialist" father Rémy (Rémy Girard) squares off with his "ambitious, puritanical, capitalist" son Sébastian (Stéphane Rousseau). Long estranged from wife and family, Rémy has pursued left wing causes, wine, and women over the years, but now the lonely history professor fearfully faces terminal illness with many regrets in a Montreal hospital ward. His former wife Louise (Dorothee Berryman) calls their highly successful son about Rémy's serious illness, and soon Sébastian and fiancée Gaëlle (Marina Hands) hop a London plane for Canada. Representing one of the "barbarian invasions," Sébastian contrasts very much with his father. Not only does he earn far more in one month than his father does in a year, he's continually buried between cell phone calls, emails, and video games while his hedonistic father remains rooted in the traditional literary world. They may have spent only 15 minutes together the previous summer, yet Sébastian demonstrates deep feelings for his father through his actions.
Their first encounter degenerates badly into the "old" wars, sinking to a shouting match of expletives, but Sébastian's mother relays old memories of how Rémy once lovingly changed his diapers, watched over him during a life-threatening meningitis bout at age three, and continually contacted his elementary school about his academic progress. When she reveals that his illness is even more serious than previously indicated, Sebastian determines to do all he can for his dying father, sparing no expense. He springs to work with all his financial resources to obtain a private room, an expensive CAT scan diagnosis in the United States, and offers to send him to Johns Hopkins Hospital. But Rémy wants no part of the latter; he prefers to remain in French speaking Montreal with friends.
Thus, Sébastian uses his financial resources and business networking skills to bring as much happiness to his father as possible. Soon various friends and mistresses from his past gather round and share remembrances, food, drink, laughter, and tears. In the film's most ironic twist, Sebastian networks with a local narcotics detective to locate heroin when a medical contact tells him that it is 800% more effective for killing pain than any legal drug. This leads him to contact with junkie Nathalie (Marie-Josée Croze) to provide care for his ailing father, providing another satisfying subplot.
In the hands of most directors, this could all have fallen into a maudlin pit more appropriate for sappy soap operas, yet the strength of the ensemble cast, Arcand's witty script, and appropriately poignant scenes make this one of the year's better films. Academics will relate to the rapid fire references to political, religious, and literary figures like Camus and Sartre, while less pretentious audiences will enjoy painful but humorous puns about blowjobs and the like. Nathalie becomes a non-threatening confidant, as a kindred spirit for Rémy—a generation removed. Once a lover of wine, with nightly fantasies of beautiful women like Julie Christie and Chris Evert, he now dreams of visiting the Caribbean, despite the fact that he can no longer taste wine, eat truffles, pursue women, or travel. Nathalie times her observation perfectly: "It's not the present you cling to—it's the past."
And so it is. Although the retired history professor sees the "history of mankind as a history of horrors," Sébastian ensures that Rémy's personal history is revisited idealistically, like delivering a eulogy before death—he even pays three students to share how much his lectures meant to them. Through his son's efforts, Rémy revisits his past with his friends, who have all gone their separate ways but now join together in a perfect send off. In spite of Sébastian's initial bitterness about his father causing his family pain and dysfunction, he does all he can to preserve Rémy's fantasies.
A more perfect world has sons forgiving their fathers and fathers acknowledging their pride in their sons before departing this mortal coil. Arcand hits the right notes with a farewell at a lakeside cottage that has my eyes watering every time I recall it. Although we expect such a scene and realize that it must come, the actors convey it with such heartfelt emotion that it almost feels like we're privy to a documentary. As Woody Allen says in Annie Hall, "You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because, it's real difficult in life," Barbarian Invasions represents an artistic ideal of how we'd all like to end things, whether standing in Sebastian's shoes or Rémy's.
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