taoyue.com: Film Reviews - Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain / The Decline of the American Empire (1986)

Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain

(The Decline of the American Empire) (1986)

directed by Denys Arcand
Frames in this review are taken from the Koch Lorber DVD, released in 2004.

Jump to section: Comparison with The Barbarian Invasions | DVD Technical Quality

The Decline of the American Empire belongs to that rare breed of film whose sequel surpasses the original in achievement. Indeed, this 1986 indie hit does no more than flirt with the ambitious theme expressed in its title. Its movie poster summarizes it more aptly, with "SEX!" written on placards in big pink letters. It is almost incongruous, then, that its sequel is the acclaimed 2003 indie hit The Barbarian Invasions — although the characters are the same in both films, Invansions is deeply philosophical, immediately relevant, and delves into the topic of American (and Canadian) decline in the age of globalization. It's almost as though Denys Arcand had gone to a dinner party, and someone who'd never watched Decline heard the title, and suggested a link to September 11.

Fortunate indeed, then, that Arcand had picked a satirical title which allows potential viewers to judge the book by its cover. Though Decline broke new ground in frankness when it was released, it will henceforth remain the junior partner when paired with its Best Foreign Language Oscar-winning offspring. There is little thematic or even narrative coherence. Think of it, rather, as a book on The Private Life of [Someone Famous]; these now-familiar characters are in more carefree times, when they can goof around having sex, or rather, talking about having sex.

The key word there is talk, for this is a stagy film, reminiscent in style of Sam Shepard's Rosenstern, err ... Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. One can easily imagine a minimalist stage version with a kitchen, a weight room, and a living room where the characters spend all their time yapping away. Opened up for film, Decline sticks with conventional framing and makes some use of location and camera moves. Still, these are more eye candy than a visual language; tricks like focus-pulling back and forth as a character exercises on a weight machine are fun, but are a little out of place in a movie so focused on the spoken word.

The film spends one day among a group of intellectuals affiliated with a Québec university. Rémy (Rémy Girard) is hosting a dinner party for his friends, and is spending the afternoon cooking with the help of three male buddies. His wife is off at the college health club among the three other female invitees. As the dinner takes shape, both men and women talk frankly about sex — lovers, swapping, dangerous hitch-ups, drug-enhanced orgasms, and more.

As one would expect, the ensemble characters are defined principally in terms of their sexual relationships; their professions take a back seat. Diane (Louise Portal) reveals red whip marks on her back in the locker room, and explains to Dominique (Dominique Michel), the chairwoman of the History Department, that she's wildly in lust in a masochistic relationship with a guy she met at a bar, the rough Mario (Gabriel Arcand). She never could stand being dominated before, but now she loves getting her hair pulled while doggy-style ("like a horse's mane"). Dominique takes all this in stride, she had herself a threesome with two buff Martinique men on vacation, and has slept with Rémy before too. The most conservative of the group is Rémy's wife Louise (Dorothée Berryman), who feels naughty for having flirted with her tennis instructor. She is under no illusions that her husband has been 100% faithful, but feels that a couple of quickie affairs at conferences are not bad for a stable relationship close to home.

Rémy is a bit of an irrepressible know it all, animatedly lecturing his class about the importance of numbers in history (the South African blacks can't possibly lose, but the North American blacks don't stand a chance). But his marriage doesn't prevent him from behaving like a swingin' bachelor, meeting UCLA grad students, picking up a couple of teenage girls hitchhiking to New York. To help him cook (of course), Rémy has his gay friend Claude (Yves Jacques), who is troubled by painful and bloody urination, evidently a souvenir from one of his one-night stands. Pierre (Pierre Curzi) is living with a young girlfriend whom he met at a massage parlor; at first he's taken aback upon learning that she's a history student. But Danielle (Geneviève Rioux) is the type of girl who can discourse on millenialism while performing "the special" for $25, and Pierre is instantly smitten. Less interested in philandering is curly-haired student Alain (Daniel Brière), who "is not like you guys; I don't want to fuck a new girl every night."

The men and women try to be more polite in mixed company for the dinner, but it doesn't quite work. Mario crashes the party with jeans and Jeep, gets bored, and suggest that they dispense with the talking and proceed to the orgy. He drags Diane off for a suitably wild night, Dominique reveals that she'd slept with Rémy, and Louise is shattered by her husband's infidelity so close to home. As Rémy desperately tries to pick up the pieces of his marriage, others bask in the radiance of the morning after.

There are a plethora of one-liners, and many of the multi-line exchanges are essentially set pieces. Except for their common sexual theme and the way they fit into the (much-interrupted for flashbacks) plot, the stories of sexual escapades might as well be a series of short one-scene plays strung together for maximum titillation. As might be expected for a dialog-heavy film like this, one loses a bit in the English translation, though it's actually fairly good in translating thematically rather than literally. Puns like cheveux/chevaux don't quite come through when translated literally ("horse's mane"), though. And the Québec accent adds a twist for those accustomed to metropolitan French.

Rémy's fond memories of his conquests, though, aren't as fiasco-ridden as the flashbacks shown. The first time he slept with Diane, she called her then-husband and calmly gave him the motel address. Later, her young daughter comes in and demands that he get out. And he's constantly forgetting his ring while scrambling around half-undressed in parting. Likewise, Dominique remembers awkward times while spouse-swapping at a party. The verbal sparring around sex, it seems, extends to sex too — it's a contact sport with bruises.

As for the philosophy tucked in here and there among all the talk of sex, it's similarly filled with one-liners. Like that talk about the fate of blacks in South Africa and America, for example, or standing outside under the stars wondering if they'd be able to see the Soviet missile falling on Plattsburg (No, "the missiles don't fall, only the warheads"). The acting is excellent, with fine comedic timing, as with Rémy's irrepressible pronouncements or Diane's slightly and naughtily boastful openers about her sexual experiences.

That's too bad, because there are some gems hidden among the idle speculation. Diane regretfully talks about the infamous baby gap, where taking time off to raise children has left her a decade behind her peers on the career ladder, without tenure and earning a tiny stipend as a TA. When Dominique suggests that Pierre write a paper about a topic discussed during dinner, he points out that 17000 academic papers are written every day. But when it comes to American decline, Dominique's musings on falling birthrates, shorter workweeks, refusal of military service, and skyrocketing national debt seem a bit misplaced. On philosophy as well as sex, the good points are overshadowed by all the witty remarks. In the end, all this discussion seems intended only for background interest, to set the scene among intellectuals rather than as a prime mover.

Decline vs. Invasions

It is because of the lightness of the commentary that Decline doesn't stand nearly as well on its own as when paired with Invasions. There is much breadth and little depth, except when it comes to sex. And while there are interesting things to be said about suburban boredom, BDSM, and casual flings, it's not nearly as relevant to today's world of globalization, the healthcare crisis, terrorism, religion, and the welfare state.

Those heady topics Invasions manages to tackle with surprising depth and intelligence. And while the ribaldry of Decline is acknowledged through the occasional joke about Raymond Poincaré's mistress, the dialog also delves into social and non-sexual personal topics. Location is likewise used to explore themes rather than as pretty backdrops, the overcrowded and dimly-lit corridors of the Québec hospital contrasting with the sparkling-clean New York hospital to which Ré is driven for radiation treatment. And with an already established ensemble of characters, changes in fortune and circumstance become significant; Claude, for instance, is happily settled with a domestic partner.

To be fair, Invasions has home-court advantage in stirring the audience's hearts: Rémy is dying. But though nothing brings out the best in an actor like a death scene, the screenplay is commendable indeed for the effortless manner in which topics of great social significance are linked to personal drama. Rémy declares that he voted for universal health care and will die by it, yet his son Sébastien swims easily in the global economy as a financial trader and arranges to have an unused wing devoted to his father in bright cheery comfort. Accustomed to getting things done in foreign bureaucracies, he can deal with Canadian hospital administrators, with the union, with drug dealers when the morphine becomes ineffective and a nurse suggests acquiring some heroin to ease his father's pain.

Sébastien's French girlfriend Gaêlle is a sleek art trader for an auction house. Her English boss asks her to take a look at art treasures held by the Catholic Church, but all she finds are worthless crosses and madonnas as the priest forlornly tells her of the day people stopped coming to mass. An eloquent exposition of the Quiet Revolution's impact on religious life, and a pointed jab at the Americans who've already bought everything of value. In parallel with Rémy's relationship with Sébastien is Diane's heroin-addict of a daughter Nathalie. Last seen in Decline as a twelve-year old screaming at Rémy to leave her mother's bed, she evidently was messed up just a bit from the occasional parental cuddling and smooching (as Louise asks Diane in the gym in Decline, "You're not worried? Psychologically?")

Sébastien did not even make an appearance in Decline, but the contrast with his hedonistic father could not be more clear. Decline makes some interesting points about relationships physical and emotional, but there is a curous lack of gravity and even the best one-liners are curiously unmemorable unless written down. The short scenes never really leave more than an impression, and something that Diane said to Louise might just as well have been said to Dominique instead with some minor rewording. In contrast, characterization is put to good use in Invasions, and there are memorable scenes where interpersonal dynamics are crucial to.

And, the sequel stands tall as a masterpiece, a keen commentary on our unsettled times. The first film is an interesting and pleasant diversion, and provides some additional food for thought, but never conveys a sense of gravity. It is a tribute to Arcand's screenwriting abilities that two dissimilar films could be connected in such a close-knit fashion, and genius to illustrate the concerns of an unsettled world using characters who previously were concerned only with sex and hedonism.

Technical quality of DVD

Decline appears on DVD from Koch Lorber a bit more sloppily-authored than usual. The picture looks fine, though with skilled operators at digital telecines, only willful neglect will turn out a bad picture. No reason to encode interlaced, but easily removed with a good deinterlacer. But who had the bright idea to duplicate the front channels in the rear? That is not 5.1 sound, and it's just plain annoying. The subtitles are translated reasonably well, but for some reason they were rendered using a program that doesn't support Unicode. All the accented characters are screwed up due to the code page mismatch, and some random capitalization pops up every once in a while. Very sloppy editing, and could've been picked up even by someone who doesn't speak French if only they bothered to check it for typos before the master went off to replication. Too, the menus are drawn for 16x9 but the aspect ratio flag is set incorrectly, but at least this is confined to the menus and doesn't affect the movie.

These are only minor annoyances, after all — the picture looks fine, most people don't have surround, it's easy to turn off the rears if you do, and accent errors only affect the names in the English subtitles. It just gives the appearance of a rush job to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the sequel.