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The Barbarian Invasions, Canadian writer-director Denys Arcand's unofficial sequel to 1986's The Decline of the American Empire, is, simply put, just another horrifyingly somber film about someone dying. It contains everything the far superior My Life Without Me had the courtesy to omit, from a formulaic structure to the silly dignified-yet-agonizing death finale. The only thing that separates Invasions from vile tripe like Stepmom and Sweet November is the language its mawkish characters spew.
I've never seen Empire, so maybe there's some fantastic cosmic revelation I missed with Invasions (or maybe the subtle crux of the entire film was revealed during the few minutes of it that I heard but never saw, thanks to a blown projector bulb - could it be like the Nixon tapes?). Likewise, I can't comment on which of Arcand's irritating characters have returned, or which are played by the same actors this time around. I suppose I could look it up, but frankly, I'd like to re-live as little of this picture as possible.
The dying person in question is Rémy (Rémy Girard), a teacher with a bad case of cinematic cancer, which, as you all know, involves lots of gray makeup and theatrical suffering - a/k/a "serious acting." Of Rémy's two kids, only one plays a big role here (the other is sailing a yacht in the Pacific and can't return for checkout time). Estranged son Sébastien (Stéphane Rousseau) is about as different from his dad as Steven and Alex P. Keaton were.
When Invasions opens, Sébastien is in London, where he has become ridiculously wealthy trading something or other. When he gets the call about Rémy's condition, Sébastien takes off for Canada and immediately starts throwing money around to make his dad as comfortable as possible. This doesn't sit well with Rémy, however, who shouts, "I voted for Medicare, and I'll suffer the consequences!" It's the old Capitalism vs. Socialism battle, but before long, Rémy is on his own private hospital floor receiving the best medical attention possible.
Father and son, of course, grow closer as Invasions careens toward its inevitable conclusion. Along the way, we learn why Sébastien had a falling out with Rémy (Dad broke up the family by banging half of Quebec). The more interesting of the story threads involves Sébastien's attempts to score street heroin to ease Rémy's suffering. He ultimately turns to the flighty, pixie-topped Nathalie (Maelstrom's Marie-Josée Croze,), the junkie daughter of one of Rémy's many sexual conquests.
But for that one appealing plotline, we have to suffer through many other duds, including ones involving church artifacts and Canadian teamsters (!). The results are very scattered, with characters flitting in and out with virtually no rhyme or reason. Eventually, Invasions turns into The Old Chill, with Rémy's friends turning up to wish him a fond farewell. They're a bunch of dull intellectuals who make cheeky double-entendres about blowjobs while sitting around a campfire. You half-expect one of them to begin reminiscing, "This one time, at band camp..."
Invasions won two awards at Cannes: Best Screenplay (beating Dogville, Swimming Pool and Distant) and Best Actress (beating Nicole Kidman and Charlotte Rampling). To be blunt, this is bullshit, though it does explain how the same cockamamie jury gave Gus Van Sant and his Elephant the top two prizes. And then there's Arcand, who bored audiences to near death with his last film, Stardom. Were it not for the Genie Awards and the Canadian-heavy programming of festivals in Toronto and Montreal, I'm not sure this guy would have a career (Invasions won Best Canadian Feature in Toronto this year, though I'm afraid that's more of a testament to the dire state of Canadian cinema than Arcand's filmmaking abilities).
1:39 - R for language, sexual dialogue and drug content
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