The Decline Of The American Empire
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: D Film: C
Denys Arcand is a provocative French director, best known
for his films Jesus Of Montreal (1989) and The Barbarian Invasions
(2003) that have been acclaimed and somewhat controversial. His 1986 film The Decline Of The American
Empire sounds like a new documentary bashing the second President
Bush. Unfortunately, it is nowhere as
exciting or interesting as that.
Instead, it is a surprisingly silly and idiotic diatribe focusing on
four adult characters and their supposedly brilliant revelations about sex and
relationships. Unfortunately, since
these are revelations these people should have had around age 19, the joking
sides of each character makes them all come across as rather humiliated.
At first, I thought perhaps it was its French language
that had presented some type of “barrier” to my understanding of what was going
on, though I have watched more French-language films than 99% of the United
States population around in the last 20 years.
Just in case, I decided to watch it in English as well, and all that
revealed is how correct I was in the first place about how juvenile the film
really was. So much so that all I could
think of was Nancy Walker’s Can’t Stop The Music (1980) with The Village
People, so single-entendre and silly these “adults” were. Bruce Jenner and Valerie Perrine would have
been welcome cast members here.
The title refers to the U.S. as if other countries,
especially France, do not have a military or sex and free time are somehow
contradictory to military service. If
you think that is dumb, you will not believe your ears when you hear the film
attempt to address sex! At first, it
was like a bad light comedy, but things really hit the gutter when bad AIDS
jokes start to fly. I was stunned that
the film thought it could be “sensitive” in telling such jokes, but I bet if
this were a Hollywood film doing the same thing, the filmmakers would have been
burned in effigy.
I should be added that the actors have limited chemistry
and believability, so before this film starts to worry about the decline of
another country, it should worry about the desecration of French Cinema, for
which we can all find it guilty as charged.
Cinematographer Guy Dufaux shot the film, but it is noting
to memorable and the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image has some detail
limits that made it odder than expected upon playback. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is nothing to
get excited about, and that is the best thing about this disc, as the only
extra is the film’s French-release trailer.
This won the Critics Award at the Cannes Film Festival. How unfortunate.
- Nicholas Sheffo
