•
Rating: I've thought long and hard about it, and here's what I've come up with.
"Les invasions barbares" by Denys Arcand is a right-wing film.
The film begins in a Canadian public hospital whose conditions resemble those of a Guatemalan field hospital. An old, pathetic, ultimately failed left-wing university professor is on his deathbed.
Trade unionists are depicted as gangsters, the hospital director sits in a very modern and luxurious office, which starkly contrasts with the rest of the setting. Yet she continues to fill her mouth with a "political jargon" evidently borrowed from the assemblies of '68. As the story unfolds, the dying man's friends gather at his bedside. They are mostly pathetic relics of the communist binge of the fifties and sixties. There's the homosexual artist (what else could he be?) who found his partner in Italy. There's the former firebrand girl who indulged in the cultural revolution and - why not - the sexual revolution. She has a drug-addicted daughter. Serves her right!
In short, these people are incapable of taking care of themselves, let alone the professor. And who will save them from this bleak state of affairs? But capitalism, of course!
Thank God the super handsome and super cool son had the good taste to reject his father's choices - and indeed he made a ton of money. Here comes money to the aid of these ingrates, asking nothing more of them than a small self-criticism, an admission that their generation didn't achieve anything - something they are, after all, more than willing to do.
Meanwhile, the super son bribes everyone a little, acquires heroin by the pack, but we all know that the law is fine for the mediocre, but an obstacle to the initiative of those who are truly eager to get things done. Private enterprise flows, away with the red tape, move forward!
What else? Ah yes: long live technology. With the internet and satellite, the father reconciles with his daughter engaged in a regatta around the world. Happy end: once everyone has admitted that being rich and privileged is better than being poor and unlucky — oh, the mistakes of youth! The old man can die in peace at the cabin by the lake. Tearjerker. Life goes on - and so does the stock market.
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By let there be rock
When cinema meets current events or ethics or philosophy, a masterpiece is almost always born.
It’s life, made of few certainties and many, many questions.
By SocialismoPuro
The hidden power of these squalid celluloid operettas: celebrating the alleged virtues of a decadent microcosm.
An Iron Maiden record causes much less political and cultural damage than a lousy 'branded' Offlaga Disco Pax.
