THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE (1986, CANADA), THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD (1993, CANADA)

The women of The Decline of the American Empire

The Decline of the American Empire is a Canadian film about a group of intellectual academics that seem to talk an awful lot about sex. The first half of the film features the four women and four men separately and the second half of the film shows them all together at a weekend retreat. The dialogue is pretty good here and we do get some insight into the characters of our featured players. The down side is that a lot of these characters don't come off as very likable or easy to relate to. I say this as someone who tends to like movies about academics. There are some nice scenes here, including the scene where one of the characters falls in love with his masseuse and another where the one outsider character dresses down the academics for being all talk and no action. 

The Decline of the American Empire  reminds me a little of some of the Woody Allen movies from this era-at least as far as the interaction between the characters goes. Another film It reminded me of in tone and interactions was The Barbarian Invasions, which I only realized after I watched this had the same director (Denys Arcand).

The men of The Decline of the American Empire

Colm Feore as Glenn Gould in one of the 

Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

How does one make a film about an artist and capture the essence of the artist? The Color of Pomegranates and I'm Not There told their portraits of artists as young and old men in their own unique way. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould does this as well. It also is literally what the title says it is. Glenn Gould was a renowned Canadian classical pianist and interpreter of the music of Bach. His story is told in these thirty-two films through interviews, dramatizations (with Colm Feore portraying Gould), musical expressions and some sections that I'd just have to categorize under miscellaneous. I think it works for the most part and the order that these films are presented does give the viewer a sense of Gould's life, art and influence.

The artist in

Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS (2003, FRANCE)

FILMS FROM THE 21st CENTURY

(Post 31 of 50)

Some quick takes on the most relatively recent listings from the
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list

I didn't know anything about The Barbarian Invasions going in, but glancing at he DVD cover below, I assumed it might be a clever romance. After viewing, all I can say is who the hell designed this cover? The core of the film is about a grouchy, philandering, liberal and dying professor and his relationship with his conservative, high finance son. The surprise of the story is that the son turns out to be a pretty good guy and does anything he can for his dying father, including scoring some heroin to ease the pain of his dying father. Many moving scenes here, but The Barbarian Invasions is filled intelligence too.

And the romance depicted in the picture? The heroin dealer the son hooks up with (hooks up with drugwise) wants to hook up with him in other ways, but he is too nice a guy and loyal to his wife despite sharing some of the same feelings. And though this sub-plot is interesting, it is a sub-plot nonetheless. 

So I recommend the movie, but give a thumbs down to the DVD cover. I guess showing a dying man in a hospital bed wouldn't sell as many units as two attractive people kissing.