Director Denys Arcand revisits the situations and relationships that informed his international breakthrough The Decline of the American Empire with this dialogue-driven character study. Set 17 years after Decline, The Barbarian Invasions, like its predecessor, examines the varying politics -- economic, personal, and sexual -- at play among an aging group of friends, lovers, and ex-spouses. This time around, leads Remy (Rémy Girard) and Louise (Dorothee Berryman) are divorced, with their son Sebastien (Stéphane Rousseau) living in capitalist splendor in London. But the slightly estranged family is brought together by Remy's losing battle with terminal cancer, and the hedonistic, ex-radical father and straight-laced son have to overcome their differences. Along the way, Remy waxes nostalgic with many of the same pals who made up the dinner party of the first film. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Review
The Barbarian Invasions is a sequel of sorts to The Decline of the American Empire, though it's not absolutely necessary to see both of these Denys Arcand films to understand and appreciate The Barbarian Invasions on its own merits. Like the earlier work, The Barbarian Invasions is an entertaining mix of intellectual musings, humor, and bawdy sexual repartee, all of these elements often mixing together to varying degrees. There's also much engrossing dialogue, as well as excellent ensemble acting. It's a more sentimental film, however, particularly in its latter portion, as the main character faces the inevitability of his impending death, cosseted as best he can be by flawed but sympathetic friends and family. There are plenty of fine scenes here, ranging from pointed (and funny) satire of Canadian institutional bureaucracy in hospitals, law enforcement, and unions to more serious vignettes of ruptured families and a young junkie (played with gaunt believability by Marie-Josée Croze) struggling with a heroin problem. If there's any reservation to be expressed about the film's quality, it's that some threads are left dangling, not just in terms of plot resolution, but also in the moral questions that Arcand often examines. Though the dying Rémy Girard is clearly a mixed bag of amusing, brainy raconteur and philandering cocksman, he seems to reach a rapprochement with his materialistic son Stéphane Rousseau rather too easily. In addition, the serious flaws and repercussions of the son's attitude -- putting everything right for Girard to leave the world in loving comfort by basically buying and bribing whatever and whoever he can -- are left mostly untouched. The stirrings of a possible romance between Rousseau and Croze are only tantalizingly dangled as well. Of course, a premature death often leaves many such loose ends, and The Barbarian Invasions is a worthy look at a man forced to ponder the weightiest of questions too soon, even if some of them aren't wholly answered. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Movie Guide
Continuing seventeen years after Arcand's 1986 film The Decline of the American Empire, the movie centres on an exploration of the characters first met in the original film and their children, newly introduced. The older generation are still largely socialist and proponents of Québécois nationalism, but both political and economic developments since the 1970s, as well as their own aging, make this stance seem somewhat anachronistic.
The plot revolves around the character Rémy's battle with terminal cancer, and the efforts of Sébastien, his estranged son to make his dying father more comfortable in his last days. Finally the father and son travel to Vermont in the United States to received medical care.
Sébastien has reluctantly returned from London at the request of Rémy's ex-wife Louise, where he has a successful career in quantitative finance - anathema to his father's socialist tendencies. However, this background helps Sébastien to navigate and manipulate Quebec's failing healthcare system on his father's behalf. In the process, he also gathers the various other friends and family members from Rémy's past who come to visit and comfort him. During Rémy's last days, he and his friends travel to the cottage of the first film, and discuss philosophy, politics, and past sexual and intellectual exploits.
The film also won five Jutra Awards and six Genie Awards, as well as prizes at other international festivals (Bangkok International Film Festival, Cinema Brazil Grand Prize, Toronto International Film Festival, Czech Lions).
