Review: Invasions barbares, Les (2003)

"Barbarian Invasion" (Les Invasion Barbares)

Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) is a successful
investment counselor living large in London. One day,
he gets a plaintive phone call from his mother telling
him that his long estranged father, Remy (Remy
Girard), is dying of cancer. She begs her son to come
home and he, reluctantly, agrees. But, as father and
son get to know each other for the first time, the
visit turns into much more than duty in Denys Arcand's
"Barbarian Invasion."

Director/scribe Arcand helms an odd ensemble pic that
tries to do many things but doesn't quite succeed with
any of them. "Barbarian Invasions" comments on the
day, September 11, 2001, when the civilized world
would no longer fight the invaders at the gate. The
barbarian is among us, Arcand tells. This cautionary
statement is also coupled with an ironic satire about
the Canadian/Quebecois public health care system with
its crowded conditions, shoddy care and sub-human
treatment of patients. Arcand points an accusatory
finger at the corruption of the hospital
administrators and union leadership that can but won't
make things happen - except when an ill-gotten buck
(or, "loony" in this case) can be had. Then, there is
the warm, melancholy comic drama about a son returning
home to care for the man who failed to care for him
when he was a child and discovers, at last, love for
his father. Basically, there is too much going on
here.

There are some pluses to "Barbarian Invasion," though,
with a gruffly touching performance as the family
patriarch by Remy Girard. The dying Remy comes across
as a selfish, bitter man when Sebastien first arrives.
There is obvious friction between father and son
stemming from Remy's abandonment of his family and his
philandering ways. Sebastien is there, the son
insists, for the sake of his mother and agrees to her
request that he find his father's old friends and
lovers and that he make Remy as comfortable as
possible. As the father/son portion of "Barbarian
Invasion" plays, Remy's crustiness softens as he gets
to know his son. Sebastien, too, learns about the real
man through the conversations of the friends and
former lovers who come to bid their old comrade adieu.


The story changes gears when Arcand begins his expose
of corruption in the health care system as Sebastien
tosses money around to hospital administrators and
union officials like it is water (so much so that I
kept wondering what Sebastien's line of work really
is). It seems that the only way to get good health
care in Canada, or at least Quebec, is by bribery.
Bureaucrats are bad in "Barbarian Invasion" but the
real health care providers, represented by nurses
Carole (Micheline Lanctot) and Suzanne (Markita
Boies), are show with compassion and sympathy. Also of
note is Marie Josee-Croze as Nathalie, Sebastien's
beautiful junkie cousin he uses to score Remy's doctor
recommended heroin supply and helps him partake to
ease the pain of his cancer. Unfortunately, Stephane
Rousseau doesn't lend anything to his character
Sebastien.

If I had seen "Barbarian Invasions" a couple of years
ago, after my own father's passing, I would have been
a quivering mass of jelly. As it is, the mounting
emotions of loss of father/family had me all choked up
anyway. 

Denys Arcand tries to keep too many balls in the air
as he juggles the multiplicity of stories and social
statements. I give it a B-.


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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1221818
X-RT-TitleID: 1126959
X-RT-SourceID: 386
X-RT-AuthorID: 1488
X-RT-RatingText: B-