Denys Arcard’s The Barbarian Invasions was the 2003 Academy Award winner in the Best Foreign Film category. It came as long overdue recognition for a director who has been making interesting films for quite a while. The Barbarian Invasions was a sequel of sorts to his 1986 film entitled The Decline of the American Empire. The main protagonist is the same man in both films, Rémy, and is played by the same actor. Since some seventeen years separate the two films, however, the films are depicting the character at two entirely different phases of life: middle age and old age. The first film was a story pertaining to members of the history department of Montreal University and their lust for life and lusts for one another: sleeping around, sharing passionately witty conversations and verbal repartee, and indulging in youthful idealism and pursuit of liberal causes. The sequel, by contrast, tackles the difficult issue of death. The Barbarian Invasions is mainly a character piece.

Historical Background: Denys Arcand has been making films for more than forty years. His best known works include The Decline of the American Empire (1986), Jésus de Montréal (1989), and now this one, Les Invasions Barbares (2003). Arcand has also worked as an actor, including parts in several of the films that he directed. Arcand is the brother of Gabriel Arcand.

The Story: The aging protagonist, Rémy (Rémy Girard), has been struck by cancer. His ex-wife, Louise (Dorothée Berryman), urgently phones their son, Sebastien (Stéphane Rousseau), asking him to fly home from London, where he lives and works as a well-compensated financial risk consultant. Louise has been divorced from Rémy for more than fifteen years, but he has no one to whom he is more closely linked at present to help him in his hour of need. Sebastien is largely estranged from his father because of conflicting values. The two can’t even converse civilly with one another, but Sebastien agrees to make the trip with his wife, Gaëlle (Marina Hands), more for his mother’s sake than his father’s.

The hospital in Montreal where Rémy is under care is in a chaotic state, understaffed and overpopulated with patients. Our first vision of Rémy finds him arguing with his wife about long past transgressions as she reminds him about his “humping every co-ed” he could lay his hands on. When Sebastien later arrives, he observes Rémy fending off the demands of his most recent mistress, who complains that he never pays attention to her body’s needs. The remainder of the opening encounter between father and son is not much happier. Rémy is disappointed with his millionaire son because he views himself as a “sensualist socialist” but his son as an “ambitious, puritanical capialist.” Sebastien, as a boy, grew up on video games and, now, as an adult has embraced finance, computers, e-mail, and cell phones. Rémy values books, literature, poetry, politics – everything having to do with the humanities – and sees his son as a traitor to his causes. He complains to his ex-wife, “He’s never read a book,” to which she counters, “but he makes more in a month than you do in a year.” To Rémy, Sebastien’s return is like a barbarian invasion.

Though Sebastien can’t abide his father’s scorn, he cares for his father in the best way he knows how – with his skill in managing financial assets, mobilizing resources, and circumventing bureaucratic red tape. Armed with the power of his cell-phone, his laptop, and his panache, he bribes a hospital administrator to open a room in a vacant floor of the hospital so that his father can have a private room. Next, he bribes officials of the hospital workers union in order to get the room freshly painted and curtains installed. With another payment, he is also able to recover his stolen laptop from the same officials. He even bribes three students from Rémy’s last class at Montreal University to pay their former professor a visit to bolster the old man’s self esteem. One of the students, in a pang of conscience, refuses the payment. Sebastien pays for an expensive CAT scan which, however, confirms the worst expectations. Rémy’s cancer will soon be fatal.

Sebastien also attends to his dying father’s needs in another way. He contacts several of his closest and oldest friends, informing them of his father’s condition. One by one, they gather round to say their farewells to Rémy. One of these is Pierre (Pierre Curzi), who is married to a wife much younger than himself and has two lovely daughters. Pierre is reformed. He insists, “The only powder I sniff now is baby’s own.” Another old friend is Claude (Yves Jacques), who shows up with his boyfriend Allesandro (Toni Cecchinato). Two of Rémy’s former mistresses come to be with him as well: Diane (Louise Portal) and Dominique (Dominique Michel). Under the circumstances, old jealousies between the ex-wife and the mistresses are largely forgotten.

As the cancer progresses, Rémy’s pain can no longer be effectively managing with morphine. The top-notch physician with whom Sebastien consults via his cell-phone recommends heroin, which, he says, is eight times as effective, but heroin is not part of the formulary of this financially-strapped hospital in Montreal. Sebastien reasons that the police will best know where heroin can be purchased and naively appears at the police station asking to speak with narcotic agents. There, he inquires, “I hoped that you could recommend a spot where I could find some high-quality heroin.” The dumbfounded detectives have to explain to Sebastien that their business is to arrest the suppliers not to direct new customers to them. Not to be deterred, Sebastien enlists the help of Nathalie (Marie-José Croze), a former childhood playmate, an addict, and the daughter of one of Rémy’s former mistresses. They strike a deal. He will keep Nathalie supplied with heroin for her own use if she will supervise her father’s medication with it at the same time. Nathalie thereby becomes the newcomer to Rémy’s circle of friends and, given his present circumstances, his most kindred spirit. She needs to get high because she is addicted; he needs the same drug to alleviate his pain. She breaks him in just as if he were a virgin: “The first hit is always the best. It’s the one you long for. It’s called ‘riding the dragon’.” She also provides some guidance of a deeper sort for Rémy, helping him to understand that it is not the present that he longs to hold onto, but the past.

Sebastien rents Pierre’s cottage on a lake – which has been one of Rémy’s favorite spots. With an IV apparatus supplied by a compassionate nurse, Sister Constance (Johanne-Marie Tremblay), and with heroin provided by Nathalie, Rémy is able to say his goodbyes to life on his own terms, surrounded by his best friends, with his son at his side, and riding the dragon over the clouds and across the River Styx.

Themes: First and foremost, The Barbarian Invasions is about mortality and about living well and dying well. Rémy’s death is presented in about as idealistic and optimistic a manner as is possible and many viewers will think to themselves that it is, in broad strokes, the way they would choose to go themselves, given the option. Though death must always be regrettable on one level, one might hope to go out in one’s own time, without undue suffering, and surrounded by friends and family. The Barbarian Invasions is neither grim nor morbid despite the nature of its subject matter. It really is much more about life than death. The film suggests that the most important matter to accomplish in the process of dying is to heal old wounds by reconciling with those who have been most important in one’s life.

Neither Rémy nor his friends are classic heroes. Rémy himself lived his life mainly absorbed with chasing women, consuming fine wine, reading good literature and studying history, and advocating a large variety of left-wing causes. He’s stubborn and boorish at times. He was unfaithful not only to his wife but to each successive mistress. He may have been a good teacher but not to the point of being truly beloved by his students. He was apparently a good father to his children when they were young (Sebastien is told by his ex-wife how his father cared for him throughout a 48-hour life-threatening bout of meningitis), but let his son and daughter down when they were older. after his divorce from their mother. His accomplishments as an academician are of the forgettable variety. He lived life with vivacity and verve, with wit and intelligence, but he thought of himself first. For all of these limitations, his situation demands our sympathy even if his character and personality are only admirable in part.

The opening scene of the film features a Canadian hospital operating in near chaos, the hallways littered with IV rigs, gurneys, and machinery, doctors misidentifying patients and vice versa. Patients are stacked almost on top of one another in cramped rooms. The Barbarian Invasions could be viewed, therefore, as something of a condemnation of the socialized medicine that exists in Canada. Rémy, however, is prepared to stand by his support for Canadian Medicade (one of his leftist causes) and refuses transfer to a better hospital in the States.

The title of the film is not a particularly apt one for attracting the kind of viewer who might enjoy this film. It conjures up images of Arnold Schwarzenegger and ancient times. The title derives, however, from twin metaphors that liken events in the film to the historic trashing of various civilizations by barbarian tribes. The first is the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which was contemporaneous with the events of this film and which are briefly depicted. A television analyst suggests that the attack might represent the beginning of a kind of barbarian invasion aimed at the empire of the United States. The other metaphorical barbarian invasion is the incursion of technology and capitalism into Rémy’s insular humanistic and leftist worldview. This invasion comes most especially in the form or his own son, with his laptop, cell-phone, and full wallet.

Production Values: Given the nature of the subject matter of this film, there was limitless opportunity for the movie to falter – to sink into banal sentimentality, for example. Instead, Arcard strikes a perfect balance between pathos, wit, and humor. The intelligent script is well-paced and provides, in the end, an ideal vehicle for exploring the basics of human relationships – love, arguments, tears, joy, reminiscence, bitterness, regrets, forgiveness, and laughter. The trips down memory lane are handled with utmost sensitivity. Possibly the most tearful moments come from two satellite-facilitated laptop communications to Rémy from his daughter, who is off sailing the South Pacific on a yacht. We can almost feel the warm tropical breeze blowing across Rémy’s face via the contact.

The cast was composed of mainly unfamiliar faces, yet these performers delivered characterizations that were not only fresh but effective. The interchanges between father and son were particularly engaging and believable. They complemented one another perfectly. Marie-José Croze, who played Nathalie, is perhaps better known than the others, having appeared most notably in Ararat. She took away the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance here in The Barbarian Invasions. She skillfully portrayed the highs and lows of heroin addiction.

Bottom-Line: The Barbarian Invasions is a film about ideas, feelings, and their communication, rather than either plot or action. There is nothing slow or boring about the film, however. It will keep you engrossed from beginning to end. Despite its subject matter, this film is uplifting rather than depressing. You’ll expend a few tears, but much more the happy type than the tears of misery. I highly recommend this lovely film. The Barbarian Invasions is filmed mainly in French (with some brief English segments) with English subtitles. It has a running time of 99 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Canada:

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Boys of St. Vincent
The Decline of the American Empire
Exotica
The Fast Runner
Felicia's Journey
The Hanging Garden
The Sweet Hereafter

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older