For most, the prospective death of a parent brings incredible sorrow. There are, however, those who have grown so estranged from a mother or father that the idea of their death hardly makes them blink a tearless eye.
Denys Arcand's "The Barbarian Invasions" begins in London as millionaire businessman Sebastion (played by Sebastion Rousseau) receives a phone call from his mother, telling him that his father Remy's (Remy Girard) medical condition is growing worse. He barely blinks.
After some convincing, Sebastion travels to Canada in an attempt to heal the relationship. He needs to be reminded, as many of us do, of the incredibly loving things his father has done for him. His mother mentions that Remy stayed up for 48 hours, rocking his deathly ill son.
"...To keep death at bay," reads the subtitle. This is the one of many clever uses of dialogue in "The Barbarian Invasions." It becomes clear within the first 15 minutes that Remy is going to die, and that the family's job is now to make it a painless, "good" death.
While the content is reasonably heavy, Arcand does an excellent job dealing with the material without any sappiness. He even keeps the majority of the film upbeat and pleasant.
Remy looks back on his life as well as history (he was a college history professor) dismally.
"The history of mankind is a history of horrors," he says to his nurse, after explaining that while roughly 150 million people died in wars and genocide in the 20th century, over 200 million Native Americans were killed in Latin America and the Carribean by European explorers.
"And they used axes," he says. "That's a lot of work."
An explanation of the title of the film is given in a interview shown on the hospital security guard's television. An image of the second jet crashing into the World Trade Center cues a scholarly explanation that future generations may look back on Sept. 11, 2001 as the day the "barbarians" broke through and brought war to the central power.
Though these dialogues make the film sound like an unrelenting downer, the witty exchanges concerning Remy's philandering nature are often uplifting. His wife has accepted it and jokes about the possibility of finding a pair of co-ed's panties in his apartment.
Perhaps the most amusing scene in the film features Sebastion approaching a pair of Canadian narcotics officers to ask where to buy his father heroin. (This is after his American doctor tells him the drug is 800 times more effective in killing pain than morphine, the hospital standard.) As the cops stare dumbfounded at the sheer stupidity of the proposition, it's easy to forget that the film's sobering story.
"The Barbarian Invasions" covers all stages of familial estrangement. A pair of babies wails off-screen as Remy's friends - their parents - argue and threaten divorce; a broken family in the formation stage.
Nathalie, the junkie who knows where to find heroin, cannot speak to her mother; they are in the broken stage. And of course, Sebastion and Remy are trying to heal.
If anything could be detracted from the plot, it would be that most of the movie would be impossible if were not for Sebastion's seemingly unlimited funds. He throws money left and right for his father's comfort; he buys him his own floor on the hospital, heroin and even buys some of Remy's former students into visiting him in the hospital. This is simply not realistic.
"The Barbarian Invasions" is a light-hearted but sincere approach to a dark topic. Those who would prefer a more intense interpretation of the topic should see "21 Grams," starring the phenomenal Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
