PRO-FREEDOM FILM
The Barbarian Invasions is one of the most Libertarian movies of all time
BY DOUG FRENCH

The anti-freedom movement seems to win all the battles, especially on the silver screen where Hollywood glorifies war, cops, big government and unionism, while demonizing capitalism and individualism. As intellectually bankrupt as these ideas are, they play well to the masses, who buy movie tickets. 

But, Libertarians are like anyone else. We like to go to (or rent) movies. However, the assumptions made and heroes created often make us cringe. Hey, we really like Sally Field, but why must we sit through the pro-union propaganda film Norma Rae to enjoy her best performance? Occasionally, we’re surprised that a movie is made that either, on purpose (or more likely unwittingly), makes the case for less government intervention, while showing unions to be what they really are: a gang of goons who supply nothing and only retain control through violence. 

Such a film is The Barbarian Invasions, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004. The film is actually a sequel to director Denys Arcand’s 1986 film, The Decline of the American Empire, but seeing (or even knowing about) the first film is not required to enjoy Barbarian Invasions. 

This movie is all about the characters and their dialog. It is far from plot driven. Action film junkies should stay away.  Plus, the movie is in French with sub-titles.

What plot there is revolves around a Montreal history professor named Rémy and his battle with terminal cancer.   The devout socialist has led a full life with many mistresses and friendships with an eclectic group of couples, gay and straight. 

Rémy is nearing death in a Canadian hospital and the movie accurately portrays what universal health care looks like: Patents parked on gurneys in hallways and wires draping from the ceiling. And the machinery, it is completely broken down.

The professor’s estranged son, Sébastien, arrives from London to make his father as comfortable as possible. The London derivatives trader immediately takes steps to improve his father’s conditions, but initially the socialist refuses, saying, “I voted for Medicare, and I’ll accept the consequences.”

But, ultimately, his rich son’s money talks. Sébastien learns that an entire floor of the hospital is vacant and makes a deal (with cash) with a hospital bureaucrat to move Rémy there. The scene with the administrator blathering boilerplate nonsense about diagnostic parameters and resource allocations will remind you of a trip to the DMV.  

Next, Sébastien had to bribe the union that controls the hospital. These greasy thugs hang around, watch TV and steal merchandise from patient rooms. Sébastien not only has to shell out money to have his father moved to an area that wasn’t even being used, but has to pay a ransom to get his laptop computer returned.

Sébastien gathers the various other friends, former mistresses and family members from his dad’s past to come and visit and comfort his father. He then takes Rémy to see an American doctor friend who says there is no hope. Because Canada’s health services does not provide adequate medication, Sébastien seeks out heroin addict Nathalie, whose mother, Diane, is one of Rémy’s former lovers, and agrees to pay for her habit if she will buy heroin for his dad, who needs the drug to alleviate his pain. 

Comically, before he enlists Nathalie’s help, Sébastien goes to the police station to ask vice cops where in the city drug dealers ply their trade, so he can purchase the painkiller.  

During Rémy’s last days, he and his friends travel to a friend’s cottage to mull over the ideological enthusiasms of their youth, from Québécois separatism to Marxism to structuralism.They also relive past sexual and intellectual exploits.  

The young capitalist Sébastien is clearly the hero of the movie, although no mainstream reviewers (who by-and-large praised the film) view it that way. It is his money, energy and resourcefulness that serve to make his father’s last days enjoyable — a father he had feuded with for years. He not only convinces his father’s friends to come to the bedside of their friend from as far away as Italy, but uses the latest technology to connect Rémy with a daughter he hadn’t seen in years. The daughter had been at sea on a sailboat.

The Barbarian Invasions is one of the most Libertarian movies of all time, but I doubt that’s what director Denys Arcand had in mind. LW