Barbarian Invasions, The

Canada 2003, 99 minutes
Dir. Denys Arcand
In French with English subtitles
Rating: [R16]
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Drama

Feat. Remy Girard, Stephane Rousseau, Dorothee Berryman, Marie-Josee Croze, Pierre Curzi, Yves Jacques

Aroview: Another finely-wrought drama from French-Canadian dir. Denys Arcand, who invests his keen sense of history, politics, literature and sex into a contemporary family drama centred around the final weeks of a dying patriarch.

Continuing the characters he developed a decade earlier in DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE, this is principally a tale of mid-life lament for a womanising, socialist University lecturer who suffers the indignities of the public health service as he reconciles variously with the extended family gathered around him.

Delivered with a surprising lightness of touch, the Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Film pitches its appeal to those at any stage of adulthood.

NZ International Film Festival 2004