The Barbarian Invasions

Directed and written by Denys Arcand

Starring Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Dorothée Berryman and Louise Portal

Rated R for language, sexual dialogue and drug content

99 minutes runtime

A combination of “The Big Chill” and “Home for the Holidays,” Denys Arcand’s 2003 Cannes film festival award winner (Best Screenplay) “Barbarian Invasions” is a French Canadian movie that has taken the States by storm.  Playing the role of a retired college history professor who is too smart for his own good, Rémy Girard is facing his life’s work and his life’s mistakes all on the same death bed.  Taken to the hospital and given a diagnosis that cannot be denied, he notifies those of his family who are still speaking to him, the word spreads and a film is born.

Among those to whom Remy is not speaking is his estranged son who he has not seen in years.  You see, they have slight political differences.  Did I say slight?  The chasm between their political viewpoints is somewhat greater than you might imagine for, say, Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.  The difference is so great it is almost a little hard to believe these two grew up together.  But maybe that’s the point, they didn’t really grow up together very much, as the old man was too busy attending night classes with his history students, if you know what I mean.

All this seems to have gone over fairly well with his philosophical wife, played thoughtfully, if somewhat mindlessly, by Dorothée Berryman (The Decline of the American Empire—1986). After all, you are what you are, she seems to say.  And he’s been through so much, what with the daily sex and all.  No wonder his body has given out.  And it has also gone over well with two of his ex-girlfriends who are also present for the last days of his life.  Now, I live in New Jersey.  Around here, this sort of gathering would have ended up with a trip to the hospital for all concerned.  But not in Quebec.  They are much more civilized there.

Hence the barbarian invasion of the filthy rich alienated son from London.  In fact, Sébastien, played by Stéphane Rousseau, seems to have grown up remarkably well-adjusted, considering he was from a broken family headed by a lecherous father who apparently rarely spoke to him.  Rousseau has few credits prior to this movie, the main one being “Les Dangereux,” a French-Canadian film of a couple years back that took a big beating by the public and critics alike.  Still, he puts out a good performance in this movie, as the somewhat guilt-stricken son who will do anything for his dying father.

In fact, most of the movie is exactly about what he does for his dying father and what he learns about himself and the world in the process.  In reaching out to Rémy one last time, he comes out of his self-imposed cell of moneyed accomplishment and rejoins the world, at least for awhile.  He does this to provide his father with a private room and ends up dealing with the corrupt union officials and the lazy public servants who, we are led to understand, run the Canadian public health system.  Based on the conditions in the original room assigned to Girard Senior, Québécois would do well to crawl to America for health care.  But it doesn’t stop there.  To deal with his father’s pain, Sébastien must even locate and negotiate with heroine dealers, and the law enforcement officials who are as jaded about their work as the health care professionals in the hospital.  Sébastien does all this to help his dad; but in a remarkable turn of events ends up seeing a different side of himself as well.  Maybe dad ended up teaching him something, after all.

In opening up to the world, Sébastien falls in love with Nathalie (Marie-Josée Croze-“Ararat”) the troubled daughter of one of his dad’s ex-lovers.  Nathalie puts out a first rate performance as a woman who has resigned herself to die at a very early age.  In a nihilistic haze she assists Sébastien in his search on the streets for heroine to reduce his father’s pain in his final days.  Through his and her eyes we see another side of death, the addicted walking dead.  Although the movie doesn’t tie up all the loose ends, this change in Sébastien may have saved her life.  You get to speculate on that one.  Marie-Josée Croze’s performance earned her the best actress award at the 2003 Cannes film festival., making a total of two Cannes medals for this movie. 

It would be a shame to not mention the couple of short and sweet scenes featuring Rémy’s daughter Sylvaine (played by Isabelle Blais, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"), in satellite video connections from a yacht she is sailing in the middle of the ocean, half way around the world.  What a marvelous mixture of the natural, the technical and the surreal.  She can’t talk long, she explains, “these satellite hook-ups cost a fortune.” 

Whether such a man as Rémy would really end up surrounded by such good friends, or would be more likely to end up testifying at one of his lover’s murder trials, is for the audience to decide.  Whether his alienated son would travel 3000 miles from his London paradise to deal with public health, Quebec style, is also left to you to decide.  But the milieu makes for the proper pot for which to stir up interesting and important issues that need to be discussed, and are either too touchy or too boring to present completely by themselves.  They seem to go down better with a little good old fashioned sex appeal.  “The Big Chill” certainly did.