'The Barbarian Invasions' is a French/Canadian film, based in Montreal. It focuses on a life-loving university lecturer who has been diagnosed with cancer. His ex-wife contacts his oil/stock-trading millionaire son and asks him to visit, the son is reluctant as they have been estranged for quite some time. The son agrees to visit as his mother cannot get hold of his sister, who works delivering boats around the world. The son arrives and after a brief argument is soon best friends with his dying father, and attending to his every need - securing him his own floor in a neglected hospital, and also his own heroin supply to counter the pain (it's 800% more effective than Morphine we're told). The son then manages to gather his father's friends and past mistresses together, who all get on like a house on fire. They all proceed to organise the lecturer's last day on terra firma.
It's suffered from some mixed reviews, and it's not hard to see why. The film does characterisation and dialogue extremely well and extremely intelligently. The dialogue is razor-sharp, especially the father's conversations with his nurse and the group conversations during the gathering of his friends. Even peripheral characters feel fleshed out, my favourite being the junkie daughter of one of the father's mistresses, who procures the heroin used to abate the father's pain.
It's not without it's faults however. On one level you find yourself empathising with the father and sympathising with the son, then on another cursing the father's infidelity and the son's capitalist wrong-doings. The barbarian invasions of the title relate to the father's preoccupation with bloody conflicts through history (he appears to be a professor of History). An out-of-place news report on 7/11 stipulates that the deaths from that tragedy are inconsequential when compared to the 20th centuries other conflicts, but what is of great note is the fact that the terrorists struck at the heart of the empire. Personally I don't think this comment was needed as I think anyone who has given any thought to the matter has realised the this was the perpetrators major intent. You are no longer safe anywhere.
Despite these issues, speaking hand-on-heart, I loved the film. It is very moving, very poignant, and is a stirring reminder that we're all here for a limited amount of time, and we should all make the most use of it. There are laugh-out-loud moments, and there are have-a-quiet-sob-into-your hanky moments. It's a film that's in the strange position of being both utterly depressing and wonderfully uplifting. The film's heart is in the right place, and it definitely get's you thinking so it get's full marks from me. Sometimes we all need a little reminder of the important things in life.
It's suffered from some mixed reviews, and it's not hard to see why. The film does characterisation and dialogue extremely well and extremely intelligently. The dialogue is razor-sharp, especially the father's conversations with his nurse and the group conversations during the gathering of his friends. Even peripheral characters feel fleshed out, my favourite being the junkie daughter of one of the father's mistresses, who procures the heroin used to abate the father's pain.
It's not without it's faults however. On one level you find yourself empathising with the father and sympathising with the son, then on another cursing the father's infidelity and the son's capitalist wrong-doings. The barbarian invasions of the title relate to the father's preoccupation with bloody conflicts through history (he appears to be a professor of History). An out-of-place news report on 7/11 stipulates that the deaths from that tragedy are inconsequential when compared to the 20th centuries other conflicts, but what is of great note is the fact that the terrorists struck at the heart of the empire. Personally I don't think this comment was needed as I think anyone who has given any thought to the matter has realised the this was the perpetrators major intent. You are no longer safe anywhere.
Despite these issues, speaking hand-on-heart, I loved the film. It is very moving, very poignant, and is a stirring reminder that we're all here for a limited amount of time, and we should all make the most use of it. There are laugh-out-loud moments, and there are have-a-quiet-sob-into-your hanky moments. It's a film that's in the strange position of being both utterly depressing and wonderfully uplifting. The film's heart is in the right place, and it definitely get's you thinking so it get's full marks from me. Sometimes we all need a little reminder of the important things in life.