Goodbye To All That
by
Howard Schumann
In a crowded hospital in Montreal and on Lake Memphremagog
in Southern Quebec, a group of seven friends and lovers gather to say
farewell to history professor and unabashed womanizer, Rémy (Rémy Girard)
who is slowly dying of cancer. Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions
reprises the characters first introduced in Arcand's The Decline
of the American Empire seventeen years ago, and they come across
as real people honestly searching for meaning and reconciliation. Though
the film is about death and dying, it is filled with intelligence, humor,
high energy, and commitment to life.
The
film centers on Rémy's estranged relationship with his son Sebastian
(stand-up comic Stéphane Rousseau) a millionaire London businessman.
When Sebastian comes to Montreal with his fiancée (Marina Hands), years
of resentment against his father boil to the surface. Rémy apparently
was not an exemplary father figure. He cheated on his wife, over indulged
himself in hedonistic pleasures, and offered less than the support his
children needed. Rémy, a socialist, considers his son a "puritanical
capitalist" and one who portends the coming "barbarian" invasions. Sebastian
resents Rémy for his womanizing and calls him "contentious." In spite
of this resentment, however, he starts throwing money around to make
his father's final days more comfortable, in a way subtly letting his
father know that money can buy anything.
Sebastian
"persuades" hospital administrators to provide a private room for him
on an unused floor and bribes union leaders to fix it up. He enlists
Diane's daughter, Nathalie (Marie-Josée Croze), a heroin addict, into
providing drugs to alleviate Rémy's pain. This allows Arcand to throw
in some digs at the Canadian medical system and the puritanical drug
laws in both Canada and the U.S. that deny adequate relief for a patient's
pain. Sebastian contacts Remy's old friends from the university and
brings them to the hospital. These include Remy's tolerant former wife
Louise (Dorothée Berryman), department head and ex-lover Dominique (Dominique
Michel), and three fellow professors. During his hospital stay, Rémy
is comforted by Sister Constance (Johanne Marie Tremblay) who puts up
with his anti-Catholic remarks and tells him to "embrace the mystery."
When Rémy is released, all meet at a cottage by a lake for a final group
discussion that includes jokes about sex and past failures, and discussions
about 9/11, American cultural domination, and all the "isms" they once
believed in. Though still full of spirit, Rémy admits that he feels
as if his life never measured up to his dreams.
The
Barbarian Invasions is not a perfect film by any means, but I consider
it one of the strongest Canadian films of recent years. Though some
of the dialogue is strained, underneath there is a humanity that allows
us to connect with our mortality and our relationships with those we
care about. It is often hard to reconcile the robustly alive Rémy with
our pictures of a man dying of cancer, but Girard is powerfully effective
in the role and I went from quiet distaste of his amorality to full
acceptance of who he is by the end of the film. Though the conclusion
is emotional, it is not trite or overly sentimental, allowing us to
access a deep place of silence within.
Somewhere in the forests of Northern
Europe during 
the closing days of World War II, Finnish support for the Nazi cause
is nearing an end. Veiko (Ville Haapsalo), a Finnish soldier, has lost
his will to fight. Forced to wear an SS uniform by his unit, he is chained
to a rock and ordered to kill as many Russians as he can before one
will eventually kill him. He is known as a "cuckoo," a sniper on a suicide
mission.
Set in Lapland, an area rarely seen on film, The
Cuckoo, directed by Aleksandre Rogozhkin, is a Russian comedy
about the failure to communicate. Its seamless mixture of earthy humor,
anti-war sentiment, and otherworldly Lapp mysticism is enhanced by strong
performances, 
especially
from Anni-Kristina Juuso, who portrays a radiant young reindeer farmer
who hasn't seen a man in four years since her husband went to war and
left her widowed. Using his ingenuity and every resource at his command,
Veiko manages to free himself after a protracted struggle. Meanwhile,
a few miles away, a Russian captain, Ivan (Viktor Bychkov) escapes while
being taken by Soviet military police to be court-martialed for anti-Soviet
sentiments.
Circumstances bring all three together at a log outpost
where Anni (Juuso) lives alone, sleeping in wooden tepees with log doorflaps.
She gives them shelter and nurses them back to health, but no one understands
the other's language (the dialogue is in Finnish, Russian, and Saami,
the language of Lapland). This leads to many confusing 
situations,
such as when Ivan tells them to "get lost" and they mistakenly think
he is telling them that his name is Gerlost. Ivan wants to kill Veiko
who tries to tell him that all he wants is peace, invoking the Tolstoy's
War and Peace and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. In this
little Tower of Babel, the three can only reach each other through tone
of voice, hand gestures, and body language, but Anni has no trouble
convincing the men that she has "an aching below the tummy." Though
Veiko is mistakenly thought to be a fascist since he still wears a German
uniform, the three gradually form a bond based on mutual need and a
common humanity. The Cuckoo is a gorgeously photographed and
emotionally resonant film that is more than an anti-war allegory. It
is a film of transcendent beauty that directly touches the soul.
Vaanaprastham
(The Last Dance, 1999), directed by Shaji N. Karun,
is far removed from the typical Bollywood combination of songs and melodrama.
It is a slow-paced, thoughtful and, at times, somber depiction of a
dancer estranged from the father who never knew him and the son he is
not allowed to see. The film is full of passion but is restrained in
its delicate portrayal of the consequences of the Indian caste system
and the failure to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
Kunhikuttan
(Mohanlal) is a Kathakali dancer in 1950s India. Kathakali is an expressive
form of South Indian theater that uses sign language, pantomime, music,
and dance to relate stories of Indian mythological and historical figures.
Kun is a respected performer, but is a member of a lower caste, without
wealth or personal happiness. His father (Venmani Haridas), an upper
class Brahmin, has rejected him and he is stuck in an arranged marriage
that provides no comfort, enduring it only for the sake of his beautiful
daughter. An alcoholic by day, he comes alive when he puts on colorful
costumes, hears the beat of the chenda drum, and takes on the persona
of the mythological heroes he portrays.
One
night, his performance of the hero of the Mahabarata, Arjuna, is seen
by Subhadra (Suhasini), an educated and highly intelligent member of
an upper caste. Contrary to the rigid taboos of the Indian caste system,
they fall in love and have a son. Sadly, she loves only Arjuna, the
character, not Kun the man. Arjuna is everything she has ever dreamed
of -- noble, manly, and heroic -- but the light of day reveals Kun as
less than the hero she fantasizes. She soon rejects him and refuses
to let him see his newborn son. Kun, now unable to see either his father
or his son, foregoes the heroic roles he has always played in favor
of portraying demonic characters, falling deeper into resentment until
the last dance brings the film to a stunning conclusion.
Spread
out over a fifteen-year period, Vaanaspratham is episodic but
fully realized in the depth of its characters and the expressiveness
of its music and dance. The film also has strong peripheral characters
such as an ailing Kathakali master, a cancer-stricken singer, a chenda
player who becomes Kun's drinking partner, and the daughter who wants
to follow her father in pursuit of his artistic path in spite of her
mother's objections. It is a challenging film, especially for Westerners
unfamiliar with the story of Arjuna and Subhadra, but the outstanding
performances of Mohanlal and Suhasini, the music of Zakir Hussain, and
the gorgeous cinematography of Renato Berta and Santosh Sivan add up
to a richly rewarding experience.
©2003 Howard Schumann
CineScene
