Les invasions barbares

Birdie 2022-10-04 08:06:53

Sebastian (Stéphane Rousseau), who is a stranger to his father, suddenly receives a call from his mother, Louise. The romantic history professor father Lemmy is now lying in the hospital and will die soon. After some hesitation, Sebastian rushed back to Montreal to accompany his father through the last period of time. Years of separation and differences in lifestyle have turned the father and son into a quarrel from the beginning, but Sebastian still tried his best to let his father pass the last days peacefully. He moved his father to a comfortable ward, called his old friends to gather together, and even bought him heroin for pain relief. In the process of getting along, the relationship between father and son has undergone subtle changes.
Known as the "Farewell Ceremony of Life", the film swept the awards ceremonies in the major film circles with its plain images and delicate emotions. In 2003, the French Cannes Film Festival won the Best Screenplay and Best Actress Awards, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or; in 2004, the French Caesar Award for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Screenplay; 2004, Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay nomination.

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The Barbarian Invasions quotes

  • Rémy: [in French] Contrary to belief, the 20th century wasn't that bloody. It's agreed that wars caused 100 million deaths. Add 10 million for the Russian gulags. The Chinese camps, we'll never know, but say 20 million. So 130, 145 million dead. Not all that impressive. In the 16th century, the Spanish and Portuguese managed, without gas chambers or bombs, to slaughter 150 million Indians in Latin America. With axes! That's a lot of work, sister. Even if they had church support, it was an achievement. So much so tha the Dutch, English, French, and later Americans followed their lead and butchered another 50 million. 200 million dead in all! The greatest massacre in history took place right here. And not the tiniest holocaust museum. The history of mankind is a history of horrors.

  • Rémy: We've been everything: separatists, supporters of independantists, sovereignists, sovereignity-associanists...

    Pierre: At first, we were existentialists.

    Dominique: We read Sartre and Camus.

    Claude: Then Fanon, we became anti-colonialists.

    Rémy: We read Marcuse and became Marxists.

    Pierre: Marxist-Leninists.

    Alessandro: Trotskyists.

    Diane: Maoists.

    Rémy: After Solzhenitsyn we changed, we became structuralists.

    Pierre: Situationists.

    Dominique: Feminists.

    Claude: Deconstructionists.

    Pierre: Is there an -ism we haven't worshipped?

    Claude: Cretinism.