2003 Winner, The Barbarian Invasions

The Barbarian Invasions

Director:  Danys Arcand

Distributed by:  Miramax Films

Released:  May 2003

Country:  Canada

Maybe because this movie is a sequel, and the second of a trilogy, I just didn’t connect with this film.  The first film in the series, The Decline of the American Empire, was made in 1986, so the filmmakers took their sweet time in getting the old gang back together for another go at it.  Now you would think that with title words like “Empire” and “Barbarian Invasions” maybe you would be sitting down to some middle-earth epic with orcs or ewoks or possibly a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  You would think wrong.  The Barbarian Invasions is about a bunch of French Canadian middle-aged ex-hippies smoking doobies and pontificating about the bourgeois.  Talk about false advertising.

An Orc invasion would have livened this up a bit

The story is about Rémy, an older ex-professor and socialist who is stuck in a hospital with terminal cancer.  His son Sébastien is some bigshot business-type, pretty much the personification of what his dear old papa hates.  Sébastien loves his dad and wants to do what he can for him to ease his pain, but this is Canada, not Iowa, so getting timely healthcare isn’t really all that easy.  Besides gathering all of Rémy’s aging hipster pals in the hospital to cheer him up, Sébastien drives his dad into pre-Obamacare Vermont to get some real meds.

The cast:  French Canadian ex-hippies

But the real “plot” is with the old folks hanging out, getting high, exchanging glory stories of free sex and Marxism.  In other words, the whole thing gets dull in a hurry.  Imagine The Big Chill, add 20 years and 20 pounds to everyone, and have them speak French.  In addition to that, and I could be wrong about this, I think the filmmakers wanted us to think some of this was funny.  I found the whole thing a bore with very little to recommend it.  I couldn’t wait for Rémy, and the movie, to end.

Slightly younger, thinner ex-hippies

The Title: Les Invasions barbares.  I have no idea how this relates to the movie, but the title has to do with a post-911 thing.  See, when the Barbarians invaded Rome, it was the beginning of the end of a great empire.  So I guess the filmmakers equate al Qaida with Angles and Saxons and Goths?  And what does this have to do with Rémy's imminent demise?  Je ne sais pas.  Makes no sense to me.

The Culture:  Other than some slight commentary on the health care system, this could have happened anywhere there is political freedom enough for ex-hippies to decry their government.

Agenda Danger:  Again, there is an oblique swipe at Canadian health care, but most of the politics is tame generational conflict.  Like, remember le peace, la love, and le dope, man?

Best Picture that year:  Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.  Real invasions and real barbarians. Sort of.

Rating:  Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

My BFF Wrap-Up: My Ranking

Starting in June 2016, I watched and reviewed every winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, or in short, Best Foreign Film (BFF), in reverse chronological order from the 2015 entry to the awards inception in 1947 (watching the 2016 winner at the end).  Part of the experiment was to see how many of these I would be able to find.  In most cases, I was able to borrow the DVD of each film from the Cuyahoga County Library system (a consistently top rated system in Northeast Ohio), and as things went further back in time, that meant using the inter-library systems CCL employs, SearchOhio and OhioLINK.  I did have to watch a couple on the dusty old VCR.  On two or three occasions when I couldn’t find the movie through the CCL system, I was able to get DVDs from the Cleveland Public Library.  Once I paid $2 to watch a movie on Amazon, and that was the grand total of money I spent on this project.  I did find a couple rare films online, having exhausted every other possibility.  Only once was I not able to find a film at all, at least with English subtitles, and that was 1950’s The Walls of Malapaga.  I watched it only in French with Portuguese subtitles, and decided to review it anyway.

My reviews were intended for people who don’t normally watch foreign films, a group that included me not all that long ago.  I found a lot of the movies worth watching, not just ones you might see at an art house, but movies I am convinced would have been mainstream American favorites had they been in English.  I also sat through a lot of tedious, self-admiring crap that got awards for having the right political or social view to the voters of the Academy.  But enough about The Sea Inside.  My goal was to make the reviews be entertaining, especially when the movie wasn't, and to give American viewer something they could relate to.

The list here is my amateurish attempt to rank what is perhaps the unrankable.  There are a variety of genres and so many different cultures represented here that it is almost unfair to compare them against each other.  But I did anyway, and the films are listed below from best to worst.  Click any movie title to read the review.  You can follow me on Twitter at @hawley5150.   

Enjoy!

1989, Cinema Paradiso, Italy

2006, The Lives of Others, Germany

1951, Rashomon, Japan

1998, Life Is Beautiful, Italy

1957, La Strada, Italy

1949, The Bicycle Thief, Italy

2011, A Separation, Iran

1975, Dersu Uzala, Soviet Union

1967, Closely Watched Trains, Czechoslovakia

1947, Shoeshine, Italy

1964, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Italy

1963, 8½, Italy

2009, The Secret in Their Eyes, Argentina

1972, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, France

1983, Fanny and Alexander, Sweden

1962, Sundays and Cybele, France

1965, The Shop on Main Street, Czechoslovakia

1986, The Assault, The Netherlands

2000, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Taiwan

1987, Babette's Feast, France

1960, The Virgin Spring, Sweden

2002 Nowhere in Africa, Germany

1958, My Uncle, France

1971, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Italy

1968, War and Peace, Soviet Union

1957, Nights of Cabiria, Italy

2007, The Counterfeiters, Austria

1974, Amarcord, Italy

1952, Forbidden Games, France

 
1961, Through a Glass Darkly, Sweden

2014, Ida, Poland

2016, The Salesman, Iran

1948, Monsieur Vincent, France

2008, Departures, Japan

2015, Son of Saul, Hungary

1970, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Italy

1985, The Official Story, Argentina

1969, Z, Algeria

1966, A Man and a Woman, France

1973, Day for Night, France

1990, Journey of Hope, Switzerland

1980, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, Soviet Union

1982, Begin the Beguine, Spain

1993, Belle Époque, Spain

1959, Black Orpheus, France

1992, Indochine, France

1988, Pelle the Conqueror, Denmark

2005, Tsotsi, South Africa

1977, Madame Rosa, France

1981, Mephisto, Hungary

1954, Gate of Hell, Japan

2010, In a Better World, Denmark

1955, Samurai, The Legend of Musashi, Japan

2001, No Man's Land, Bosnia and Herzegovina

1976, Black and White and in Color, Ivory Coast

1979, The Tin Drum, West Germany

1996, Kolya, Czech Republic

1994,  Burnt by the Sun, Russia

1978, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, France

2012, Amour, France

2013, The Great Beauty, Italy

1997, Character, Netherlands

2014, The Sea Inside, Spain

1995, Antonia's Line, Netherlands

2003, The Barbarian Invasions, Canada

1991, Mediterraneo, Italy

1984, Dangerous Moves, France

1999, All About My Mother, Spain

1950, The Walls of Malapaga, France/Italy (not ranked)

FINE!