Customer Reviews

The Decline of the American Empire

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I guess like a lot of other viewers, I hadn't watched "The Decline of the American Empire" until after I had watched its sequel. Four men and four women get together in a house by the lakeside in Quebec and what follows will keep you engrossed till the end. Director Denys Arcand has the characters play out how they would spend a normal holiday, but "normal" for them has a slightly different meaning than for us ordinary folks.

There's a much younger Remy, the professor at the University of Laval, womanizer par excellence, alongside his (comparatively) straightlaced wife Louise. Pierre, the host, is seeing Danielle, a history student at the university, who was his masseur at a parlor where he is a regular. Their gay friend Claude lives alone because of his compulsive urges to cruise. Then there's the naive and innocent Alain, both Remy and Pierre's ex-mistress Dominique and finally Diane, who's in a BDSM relationship with a guy who scoffs at Claude's Russian trout dish, wine and pilsner but still turns him on as he resembles one of his ex-lovers. The movie follows their conversations over the course of the day, the night and the next morning, interspersed with flashbacks. As Louise says to the BDSM guy, intellectuals love to talk ... and boy, do they talk! Constantly trading barbs, reeling off historical accounts, offering informed opinions on issues (though not as engaging as those in the sequel) and above all, discussing their sex lives (which are nothing short of spectacular) ... the interchanges won't feel dull for a moment. Remy, as usual, is utterly lovable in his depravity.

On a personal note, I like "The Barbarian Invasions" better as I feel that Arcand has refined his style even more over the years so that he is at his peak by this time, but nevertheless this is an enjoyable (if a bit uneven) watch ... not to mention the deja vu that fills you the entire time as you recognize the characters and relate to them as scenes from the other movie come back to you.

Four middle-aged successful couples examine the sexual revolution. The men all meet and talk (they are preparing a dinner), and the women all meet, too (in a gym). The movie is almost all talk as each person reveals his or her own story and feelings. They then all meet and talk some more, and some illusions are destroyed via certain betrayals. It's rare to see such a sophisticated film, though it's very stagey and not very dramatic. (At one point a man, not part of the group, says, "All they do is talk about sex and then sit down to a fish dinner.") An interesting picture, though, for the most part. In French.

One of the warmest, coolest and most bracing films I have seen. I cried with laughter and sadness and realisition at a film that is refreshingly bold about human weakness and strengths. Very funny, stirring, sad...true. SEE THIS FILM.

Oswld Spengler wrote "The Decline of the West" before world War I and the title of this movie suggests a parallel cultural history or documemtary of the present.Far from it . A very frank sexual discussion ,among men, casually mentions that female dominance is a characteric of the decline of a civilization. The female viewpoint is equally well formulated and expounded in an interview.The subtitles lack the elegance of the French- Quebecois,20 years have passed and the subject has lost nothing of his luster. I loved it.

Sort of a French-Canadian 'Big Chill', but smarter, if less emotional.

There really isn't a plot. For the first half of the film four upscale,
yuppie male friends (one gay) prepare a meal and talk about sex, while
their female counterparts do the same at a gym. The 2nd half is the two
groups sharing dinner, where the talk is more muted, but the personal
stakes much higher.

Probably over-hyped as a masterpiece when it first came out, now
it's often treated too harshly.

The acting is strong throughout, and the satiric point that all the
characters believe themselves self-knowing, but are really all living
in denial and delusion is perhaps a little obvious, but interesting in it's
effect and execution.

Sort of a French-Canadian 'Big Chill', but smarter, if less emotional.

There really isn't a plot. For the first half of the film four upscale,
yuppie male friends (one gay) prepare a meal and talk about sex, while
their female counterparts do the same at a gym. The 2nd half is the two
groups sharing dinner, where the talk is more muted, but the personal
stakes much higher.

Probably over-hyped as a masterpiece when it first came out, now
it's often treated too harshly.

The acting is strong throughout, and the satiric point that all the
characters believe themselves self-knowing, but are really all living
in denial and delusion is perhaps a little obvious, but interesting in it's
effect and execution.

I glanced at some of the reviews before I watched this film. I found them helpful and they almost made me skip the movie. However, I make it a habit to watch as many of the Best Foreign Language Oscar nominees as I can and this is one of them. I was also put off by a French movie with such a title until I realized that this is a French Canadian movie. Well, THEY certainly have a right to their opinion on the subject.

It didn't take long before I was seeing (and hearing and reading) what the reviewers were talking about. The movie goes back and forth between the women at the gym and the men at the house. (That was an interesting touch; the women were working out and the men were home preparing the meal). With each segment we hear the men and women talking about their sexual escapades; past and present. The bragging, and laughing, and more lets us know that these are friends who enjoy each other's company. It gives us a sense of being in a comfort zone of often uncomfortable converation. In time, after we already know who did what with whom, the groups get together at their planned get together. The subject remains the same but the tone is a bit different. Eventually, after too much bold talk fueled, in part, by too much alcohol, someone goes a step too far and the cameraderie is altered.

There comes a point when the movie's title is discussed. By that time, we have seen enough of what should be the real underlying meaning of the title. The joke is on the participants who fancy themselves as intellectuals because they are college professors. The lack of any real commitment shows the fragility of the relationship involved; the long-term ones, the recent romances, and the possibilities that are just coming to light. One senses that, after a night of encountering their shallowness, they'll readily return to their definition of normal.

"Decline of the American Empire" is a difficult movie to define, mainly because it straddles both European and New World cinematographic tendencies (i.e., ponderous and talky on the one hand, ponderous and talky about sex on the other). Briefly, it's the story of four or five friends who, with one exception, discover that their relationships are in decline -- disintegrating because they come to know more and more about themselves and their lovers. Is it supposed to be some complex metaphor that somehow ties back in to the movie's title? That's never really clarified. But the dialogue is fun (Quebecois French, English subtitles), and the characters aren't sympathetic enough to make you feel sorry for them, so you can, in a detached way, enjoy their suffering in this offbeat comedy drama farce.

Although this film came out over two decades ago, it is still fresh and funny and right on target with the observations on the nature of human relations. The sequel ("The Barbarian Invasions") is more plangent in that we see the other side of that humor, but equally fabulous, and not without its own quirky humor. Get both films, some good bread, wine, and cheese, and have a fabulous evening.

This film is not just about men view on women or women view on men or sex viewed by men or sex viewed by women.
It is about Hystory. Denys Arcand is an hystorian first of all.
It also is about intellectuals leftist who became the new bourgeoisie.
It is about a part of the world, Québec province in Canada, who changed immensely throught out the 60's and the 70's when its french intellectuals finally had the opportunity to educate them self and becoming their own leader in every profession from top to bottom. It is about the left politics view of a new born nation that in the 80's is already getting old and its leftist intellectuals are becoming exactly what they were fighting in their youth.
This movie has so many dimension it had to have a sequel 17 years later that answers every question that it was rising in the 80's with the sublime The Barbarian Invasions.
Both are a must see!