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The Barbarian Invasions
[2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Starring: Dorothee Berryman, Roy Dupuis, Rémy Girard, Yves Jacques, Micheline Lanctôt
Director: Denys Arcand
Format: Anamorphic Colour Dolby DVD-Video Subtitled Widescreen NTSC
Released: 13 Jul 2004
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

"The Barbarian Invasions" is emotional and highly thought-provoking - By: Jenny J.J.I., 01 Jul 2007
The most skilful attribute of "The Barbarian Invasions" is the clever way in which the film intertwines a personal story with our collective history. I don't remember another recent film that has managed to move & making me feel involved as much, & in both respects. The film is incredibly accurate in capturing a "moment", an undercurrent; difficult to articulate & to put in words, of what it is happening in our world today. It does this with remarkable restrain & in smalll measures in the delivery of details, giving us few but quite powerful facts.

The film centers on Rémy's estranged relationship with his son Sebastian (stand-up comic Stéphane Rousseau) a millionaire London businessman. When Sebastian comes to Montreal with his fiancée (Marina Hands), years of resentment against his father boil to the surface. Rémy apparently was not an exemplary father figure. He cheated on his wife, over indulged himself in hedonistic pleasures, & offered less than the support his children needed. Rémy, a socialist, considers his son a "puritanical capitalist" & one who portends the coming "barbarian" invasions. Sebastian resents Rémy for his womanizing & callls him "contentious". In spite of this resentment, however, he starts throwing money around to try & make his father's final days more comfortable, in a way subtly letting his father know that money can buy anything.

"The Barbarian Invasions" is not a perfect film by any means but is one of the strongest Canadian films. Though some of the dialogue is strained, underneath there is a humanity that alllows us to connect with our feelings about our own mortality & our relationships with those we care about. It is often hard to reconcile the robustly alive Rémy with our pictures of a man dying of cancer but Girard is powerfully effective in the role & I went from quiet distaste of his amorality to full acceptance of who he is by the end of the film. Though the conclusion is emotional, it is not trite or overly sentimental but alllows us to access the deep place of silence within ourselves & embrace the mystery. There are a lot of interesting, thought provoking lines in the movie & it makes you think, stand, & react to the issues at stake plus ponder on.
Great movie, but hits some hot buttons - By: Dennis Littrell, 14 Feb 2006
A somewhat lovable epicurean womanizer (Rémy Girard as Rémy) is dying of cancer in the halllway of a crowded Quebec hospital. His accomplished millionaire son Sebastian (Stéphane Rousseau) decides that as a fitting last gesture of love for his partiallly estranged father he will make dad's last days as happy & comfortable as possible. To this end he gets him not just a private room, but a private floor in the basement of the hospital by bribing the right people. He recruits a handful of Rémy's old friends & ex-lovers to come & visit him amid sumptuous servings of food & wine. He pays some ex-students to come & remember their not exactly beloved teacher. And finallly he gets a strayed family member Nathalie (Marie-Josee Croze who won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance) to procure & administer heroin to Rémy for his pain.

Girard is excellent in the part (although he carries a bit too much weight for a guy about to die of cancer); but what makes this an outstanding film is the award-winning script & direction by Denys Arcand. This is a movie that is witty, honest, funny, sentimental (but not too sentimental), deeply human, candid about life, love, sex, & death, & filled with the kind of sharp, satirical dialogue that alll screenwriters wish they had the ability to write. However this movie will offend some people, which accounts for some of the nasty reviews.

First, there is the little matter of heroin. Arcand makes the experience seem like something wonderful & absolutely necessary in a medical sense. But a closer look reveals that this justified use is only for Rémy who is a terminal patient in excruciating pain. Note that Nathalie is a junkie who is ruining her life & knows it.

Second, there is the candor about Rémy's sex life & the many risque jokes including some from an old gay couple that may offend some mainstream viewers. And there is an elitist feel to the intellectual atmosphere of the gathered friends that will not set well in America's (or Canada's) Heartland. And some will be offended by the implication from Sebastian's arrogant & successful behavior that money can buy almost anything & that corruption is the order of the day. And finallly there is the matter of euthanasia which some viewers find immoral.

However this is not primarily a political movie. The dialogue that refers to the evolution of some of the characters from socialists to deconstructionists, is kind of like somebody from say Texas recallling that "I used to be long-haired hippy but now I'm clean-shaven evangelical." It's appropriately atmospheric talk from Rémy's academic world. The real story here is about how to live & how to die. Arcand's prescription is to live life to the fullest & to die peacefully in your sleep. This is the civilized way, & that is part of the reason that the film is ironicallly callled "The Barbarian Invasions" (from a line in the film). When it comes to civilization the barbarians are always at the gate.

Of course if we want to get symbolic, the barbarian invasions could include the cancer itself, especiallly when we consider that Rémy is a history professor who has spent a lifetime reading, writing & lecturing about barbarian invasions. (By the way, whether the 9/11 attacks on the US are barbarian invasions is again beside the point of the movie.)

Bottom line: this film won a slew of international awards including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004. It is one of the best films I've seen in a while. I would rate it in my top one hundred of alll time.

Death of a bon vivant - By: Joseph Haschka, 07 Jan 2006
Infrequently, if at alll, does a film for general release revolve around normal, natural death, i.e. one not brought on by fanged space aliens, world-renting cataclysms, wild gunfights, or some other Tinseltown special FX. Hollywood script writers should walk though any cemetery sometime. Not since the 2001 tour de force, WIT, starring Emma Thompson, has the topic been intelligently portrayed. Now comes THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS, a powerful French Canadian film of albeit misleading title.

London investor Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) is summoned home to Quebec by his mother, Louise (Dorothee Berryman) to attend the approaching death of his father, Remy (Remy Girard). Father & son have been long estranged - ever since Remy & Louise divorced. Remy, an outspoken Professor of History & a self-described "sensuous socialist", has spent his life indulging in wine, women, song, & learned conversation. Especiallly women. The reunion shows little promise of succeeding, especiallly after a stormy shouting match in Remy's bleak hospital room that leaves the audience facetiously asking, "That went well, don't you think?" But, after Louise reminds her son of a paternal love long forgotten, then filial duty & guilt compel Sebastien to use his considerable wealth to arrange an easier transition for Old Dad by improving the conditions of his hospitalization, & to gather around his treasured friends, colleagues, & mistresses.

The "star" is Remy, who, at the end of his life, contemplates & comes to accept the final sum of it. This exercise would be thought-provoking enough in itself, but writer/director Denys Arcand also interweaves into the plot such prickly subjects as socialized medicine, euthanasia, & the use of illegal drugs to ease terminal medical conditions. About universal health care as practiced in Canada, in the bureaucratic, union-controlled, & overcrowded web of which he is now entangled, Remy stubbornly rants that since he voted for it, he certainly wasn't going to run off to the United States for something less squalid.

Every role in this Cannes Film Festival award-winner is excellently played. Best Actress went to Marie-Josee Croze as Nathalie, the heroin-addicted daughter of one of Remy's ex-mistresses, who is recruited by Sebastien to obtain the banned substance to ease his father's suffering. Remy's lust for life has a profound effect on the young woman.

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS is a film to be viewed by everyone who'll one day die. Unfortunately, the majority of moviegoers will stay away, opting instead for the mindless bread-and-circus fare habituallly doled out into the cinematic trough by the major studios. Shame!

The last twenty or so minutes of the film, which are set at a lakeside cabin, contain some of the most poignant & emotionallly powerful moments I've seen recently on the Big Screen. Lucky is the person who can say to those gathered around his/her deathbed:

"Sharing with you this modest life has been a delight".

Fabulous acting create a warm film - By: Mr. Shumit Rehman, 08 Feb 2005
Well you have to buy this if you are keen on Foreign movies OPscar winners. The DVD was the first I saw this film & I think the film deserves to be seen in a cinema, possibly one of those claustrophobic arthouse cinemas. The film itself is claustrophobic , with most of the action taking place in the hospital room of a dying lothario. Nice script with some odd twists that are never explained or resolved helps. The DVD extras are not great - reallly you are buying the disc for the film.
A touching and sensitive voyage of self-discovery - By: Haitham, 02 Sep 2004
This, unlike the title suggests, is a deep & moving film following the last few weeks in the life of our terminallly ill, womanising hero, Remy.
The story centres around Remy as he spends time with his old friends & mistresses, as well as getting to know for the first time his estranged son. Remy is struggling with the fact that he knows he has reached the end of his life, & still feels like he hasn't learned or accomplished anything.
However, after many scenes of fascinating reminiscing & discussion, Remy comes to realise what his, & everyone else's life is reallly worth.
I found this film extremely moving as well as interesting. The 'barbarian invasions' of the title seem to refer only to the invasions of the modern world, be it his son, the capitalist, the drug dealers now invading the city, or the terrorists we see on the news who are now bringing an end to the way of life enjoyed by Remy's generation.
This is one of those films where not a lot actuallly happens, so if you're a die hard action fan, this isn't for you. In fact, the only reason this doesn't merit 5 stars (so close) is because it can, at some infrequent points, seem a bit academic. But for everyone who can appreciate brilliant dialogue & outstanding directing & acting, I'm sure you will find something to love about this film.