“Every night I’m so surprised by the audience’s knowledge of what I’ve done and their interest in foreign films,” Director Denys Arcand talked with me about his new film THE BARARIAN INVASIONS.

“You have to know your core audience,” he said, “and mine is for people very knowledgeable about film and you have to trust them.” Arcand went on to admit that this group does not represent the mainstream and the type of films that consume the box office.

THE BARARIAN INVASIONS takes place two years after 911 and involves the last days of Remy a character formerly introduced to us in 1986 in Arcand’s THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE, a kind of foreign BIG CHILL. In INVASIONS, Arcand brings back a few of DECLINE’s characters as they rally around the dying Remy.

I asked Arcand why he brought Remy back only to kill him off.

“It was for almost technical reasons. Everything I came up with was bleak and depressing and I was struggling with the subject. So, I thought what if it was Remy? Then it became easy because I was able to bring in laughter.”

Remy is an academic whose sexual exploits are well known to all of his friends and particularly to his family. There is humor in the tragic sadness of his demise and the perplexing struggle of his family in that they, like everyone else, love to hate Remy who is now reduced down so much by his illness.

Arcand admitted that killing Remy off was necessary for two reasons: “(1) it’s the core of the movie although we don’t want him to disappear; and (2) life is like that, you know, it’s ironic that the ones who love life the most are the ones that often go first.”

I told Arcand that I appreciated his use of technology and blending the old with the new. It was my interest in science fiction drama that drew me to this, I admitted. Sabatien, Remy’s son, is part of the 30 something wired or now wireless generation using cell phones and satellite communication. He even introduces one character, Remy’s daughter, entirely by satellite making appearances on Sabastien’s laptop computer.

“I didn’t think about it [technology] on a conscious level, but these tools are so wonderful. And I did not want to have both children together in the film because the story is more about a father and a son and not about a father and a daughter. The Internet [and satellite video connection] enabled me to have the daughter there with an extreme presence and be very emotional. These tools are part of reality today, we live with them, and it would have been normal for Sabastien to have a cell phone glued to his ear most of the time.”

Funny that I had my cell phone pressed to my ear interviewing Arcand. While he was kind enough to swing through Atlanta (my neck of the woods) on November 25th, 2003, I had already left to spend Thanksgiving in Chicago. Ain’t technology grand!

Remy in INVASIONS is an academic, a college professor. There is a touching scene told in flashback in which Remy must tell his class that he won’t be finishing the semester because of his illness. I asked Arcand about the students’ reactions.

“I have been flat broke before and taught twice. It was difficult, you’d make a reference to a book or something in literature, and the students have never read the book.” Student apathy takes it’s toll on the professor I admitted to Arcand (I teach at a local university). Often, I’m forced to make references to Ben Affleck and Jlo in my hypothetical questions in order to hold student interest. Arcand agreed with laughter.

Remy and his friends are decidedly liberal in their approach to politics which may alienate some American audiences.

Arcand told me that the way Remy and his friends talk about things would be realistic because they would try to “interpret” the world events and find “meaning” in them.

I asked Arcand about his depiction of a modern 21st century family in INVASIONS—Remy’s affairs finally resulted in a separation from his wife who still loves him but can’t live with him, obviously, few can.

“Well, this is very present in the society in which I live. I’ve had three women in my life. I’m 62, I lived with one woman til I was 40, another til I was 50, and now another. I still see the first two.” Despite the number of relationships, Arcand told me that “you find a way to have a family and friendship. We cannot just live alone.”

With INVASIONS, Arcand reminds us that family and friends can ensure that we don’t die alone either.

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS is in theaters now.

Jonathan W. Hickman