Dir: Denys Arcand. Starring: Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Marie-Josee Croze.
I feel a little odd reviewing Barbarian Invasions, because I’m almost certain that many readers will disagree with me. Denys Arcand is - formally - quite a good filmmaker, and at times very subtle. Every time I wrote this film off, another, if not startling, at least very engaging moment would come along and give me pause for thought. Ultimately however, Arcand has made a series of well-crafted, cheap pay-offs. There are some emotional moments to be had in The Barbarian Invasions, but the intelligence behind them is sadly lacking. This film brazenly, wilfully cashes Baby Boomer feelings of regret and ennui without actually offering anything in return, and that’s pretty dodgy.
Remy is dying in a crowded Canadian hospital. A former lecturer and all-round cad, he complains about everything from the war on terror to today’s youth while his ex-wife rallies family and friends around him. What follows are some very laboured points, a breath-takingly shallow intellectualism, and a moral that seems to go “even buttheads deserve to be loved.” Well, I knew that, didn’t I?
This film has been tremendously popular, garnering an Oscar and five star reviews from every place except - notably - the trusty Philip Bradshaw from The Guardian, and I can see why. The Barbarian Invasions in aimed at the quickly aging legion of Baby Boomers who faced a world indifferent to their idealism, and now; indifferent to their very presence. In the face of the postmodernism they helped spawn, the reactions of the film’s protagonists are cyncism, denial and a fair share of foot-stamping.
It saddens me that the tone of Barbarians is so smug and self-serving. Baby-boomers - my parent’s generation - really deserve a little more credit than this. The “Me, Me, Me” ethos of the film aptly characterises a generation that refused to grow up, and has never accepted a world where their demands - be it for equality, longevity or profitability weren’t met. Unfortunately for Arcand and mercifully for the rest of us, a lot of these people have grown up, they did change the world, and they like it.
Though working with a cracker cast, some very nice shots, and a few undeniably touching moments, The Barbarian Invasions is just too shallow, misanthropic and narrow-minded to like. That said, the film has obviously been a real hit with Baby-Boomers who share the protagonist’s sense of alienation and superiority, and it was in the screening I attended, too.
At the same time, I think as citizens, we have a responsibility to engage with the world around us, rather than simply write it off as wrong and misguided. The Barbarian Invasions spend most of its time doing the latter and spinning a bourgeois fantasy that has never existed for the bulk of us. It’s interesting to remember that it was the critic Matthew Arnold who christened the Aristocracy as the true barbarians. Arcand could do with a little introspection; the enemy might be closer than he thinks.
Patrick Garson.
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