The Barbarian Invasions - **
Now Playing: (2003, Denys Arcand) [seen in theatre]
Yet another in a line of Miramaxified Best Foreign Film winners, Arcand's bland follow-up to THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE (which I haven't seen) really didn't leave much of an impression on me, to be honest. Far as I can recall, the story focused on dying professor Remy, whose estranged son unites his old friends and colleagues (the ones who were in the original film, no doubt) to bid him a warm farewell. Which is a decent (if not exactly original) setup for a film, it must be said, but the movie doesn't really distinguish itself in other areas. Part of the problem is that it's hard to identify with most of the characters we see onscreen, since they tend to be semi-blowhards or caricatured boobs, aside from Remy's son, who pours his money into making dad comfortable for his final days and so I suppose has earned the right to be uninteresting. Maybe it's just late, but this film barely even registered in my memory. I mainly remember walking out of the movie with two objections- that Arcand tends to cut away from the most potentially interesting moments just as he seems to be within reach of something special, and that supporting characters too often become easy targets for mockery (like the one prof's young wife, who seems nice enough at first but flies off the handle and threatens to walk out late in the film- where'd THAT come from?). Finally, I guess the jabs at the Canadian health care system are funny if you live up there and can take it for granted, but living in the U.S. where the choice for so many lower-income workers in need of care is either to die or to pay hospital debts for the rest of your life, universal coverage doesn't look so bad. It's not an awful movie, it's just not very interesting.