The Barbarian Invasions

Rating

Director

Denys Arcand

Screenplay

Denys Arcand

Length

99 min.

Starring

Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Dominique Michel, Yves Jacques, Pierre Curzi, Marie-Josée Croze, Marina Hands, Toni Cecchinato, Mitsou Gélinas

MPAA Rating

R (For language, sexual dialogue and drug content)

Review

The simple truth about dying is that it forces you to take a look back at your life and see what you accomplished and what you didn’t. It’s a time to examine regrets and reevaluate their importance. The Barbarian Invasions is a simple story with more depth and emotion than many films of its type.

Rmy (Rmy Girard) is a former collegiate professor whose career took a downturn as he aged. Now he’s on his death bed and still as irascible as ever. His son, Sbastien (Stphane Rousseau), has become successful but the relationship he has with his father is limited at best. When he visits his father in a cramped Canadian hospital, he wants to use his success to benefit his father who is, at first, reluctant to accept the assistance.

When Sbastien finally convinces his father of a change, he does everything he can to make his father’s last days special ones and to hopefully rebuild the bond he never had. To that end, we meet an array of characters who, now much older, have come to Rmy’s bedside to rejoice in the life of this man whose passion affected everyone.

The performances in this film fit well into the story. None of the actors force themselves to the front, allowing everyone to act as an ensemble and not as if they are fighting for a position of superiority. The best performance in the entire film comes from Marie-Jose Croze as a drug addict who supplies Rmy with heroin to ease his suffering. Her relationship with the dying man and his son is emotional and involving. Her presence in the film is a blessing. Likewise, Girard and Rousseau give performances that are involving, interesting and intimate. Their emotional growth elevates the film to new heights.

Writer and director Denys Arcand has created a moving screenplay that focuses on the life of a man, his relationship with his son and the impact one person can have on the lives of those around him. This is epitomized through the interesting conversations held at Rmy’s bedside. These discussions resurrect the characters’ memories of times now past that seem so real even into the present. Everything comes together in a brilliant scene as the entire ensemble surrounds Rmy’s deck lounge chair watching a recorded transmission of his daughter, living her own life in the great ocean, wishing her father farewell because she knows she will never see him again. The raw emotional impact is captured brilliantly, each actor giving a responsive note pitched perfectly with the attitudes they have developed through the film.

The Barbarian Invasions is a deeply moving character study. It doesn’t rely on excess to get its point across and certainly doesn’t waste time saying what it has to say. Arcand gives us a wonderful portrait of real people forced to reconcile their pasts against a certain future and rejoicing in what once was and can continue to be well up to the very end.

This French-language film is subtitled to give the audience assistance but what’s on the screen tells the story adequately without the help. Many viewers will shy away from this type of film as the white text at the bottom of the screen makes them say that they “don’t want to read a movie.” Sadly, those people will miss out on a truly amazing movie that not only makes us think but makes us hope that our own lives can be painted as vividly and with as much passion as that of this man Rmy.

Review Written

February 5, 2004