The Decline Of The American Empire

Here is a movie where everybody talks about nothing but sex, and the real subject is wit. The movie takes place during a little more than 24 hours in the lives of some friends, who either work in the history department of a Canadian university, or sleep with people who do. They meet for dinner, and as they prepare and eat the food and drink the wine, they talk and talk about sex. But if you listen carefully, you will find that their real subject is not sex, but verbal cleverness, and that their real passion comes in the area of intellectual competition.

"The Decline of the American Empire" has been described, far and wide, as a French-Canadian version of "The Big Chill." It reminded me more of "My Dinner with Andre." It is about people whose private lives are mostly kept off-screen, so that we have to picture the adventures and exploits, the scandals and disappointments, as they describe them.

The movie is filled with words, lots of words, all of them in French with English subtitles. In a curious way, the subtitles are a bonus; they double the number of words contained in the movie, and underline the way that these intellectuals have been able to locate their sex lives mostly between their cerebral cortexes and their larynxes.

Sex itself is a very simple thing - so simple that it can be adequately discussed in such limited vocabularies and basic images as those used by Charles Bukowski or Henry Miller. But it is not the physical activity of sex that the characters in this movie are really talking about. They're discussing the meaning of sex, the object of sex, the embarrassment and guilt, the ambition and silliness of sex. To them, as to so many civilized people, good sex boils down to winning the admiration of someone you admire. They'd rather have a mediocre time in bed with the right person than a great time with the wrong one.

Not all of the people in the movie are so distanced. The director and writer, Denys Arcand, first establishes all of the intellectuals and then introduces two characters who function as loose cannons below deck, so to speak. One is Mario, a rough, rude punk who turns up uninvited, looking for Diane, who is writing a book and does not seem at all the kind of woman to be attracted to such a clod. The other is Claude, a homosexual, who frankly confesses his hunger for dangerous sex with strangers. The appetites of Mario and Claude - and, by implication, Diane - are vaguely disturbing to the other characters, reminding them of a time long ago when their own sex drives were that urgent and compelling.

Meanwhile, however, they continue their verbal dance, trying to shock and surprise each other; top points go to the person who can put himself down while at the same time revealing what a fabulous person he really is. It turns out that not all of the people at the party have been faithful; some have cheated, and the revelations inspire the usual heartbreak and tears. Truth time is painful, but what's fascinating is that the hurt comes from the words themselves: One character seems wounded not so much because her partner has been unfaithful as much as because he has chosen to tell her so.

The mistake, in viewing "The Decline of the American Empire," is to think it's about sex. It is really about what has replaced sex in our society - thinking and talking about sex. The movie is wise, deep, and painful, and it is filled with words. Used to be, a "sex film" contained lots of nudity and steamy scenes. That kind of stuff would just slow this one down.

This is a very intriguing French-Canadian movie written and directed by Denys Arcand. A group of Canadian academics are preparing for a get-together. While the men assemble a meal, the women exercise at a health club. The talk - in both instances - centers on sex. They compare notes on the physical prowess of their lovers, the thrills they have had, the creativity involved in keeping their love affairs hidden from their mates and their disappointments with the opposite sex.

Remy (Remy Girard), the most active hedonist in the group, states: "Love - the kind that makes your heart race - lasts two years at best. Then the compromises begin." His wife Louise (Dorothee Berryman), who has no idea of the extent of her husband's extramarital activities, is shocked when she learns the truth. Pierre (Pierre Curzi) has divorced his wife and is living with Danielle (Genevieve Rioux), a student who he met on a visit to a massage parlor.

Diane (Louise Portal) has left her philandering husband and begun a sadomasochistic affair with Mario (Gabriel Arcand), a rough, leather-jacketed drug dealer. Claude (Yves Jacques), an art history professor at the university, is a homosexual who is quite upset about a mysterious illness which has overtaken him. And Dominique (Dominique Michel), author of a new book on happiness and cultural values, shatters the evening's festivities by revealing that she's slept with both Remy and Pierre. Her lover for the night is Alain (Daniel Briere), a young student who is infatuated with her worldly sophistication.

In the funniest line of the film, Mario - the outsider who waited around for Diane while the men were preparing the gourmet meal - states at dinner: "They talked about sex all afternoon as if they were getting ready for an orgy. Instead, the big deal is a fish pie!"
Arcand's The Decline of the American Empire asks all the right questions about the sexual revolution and makes some interesting connections between eros and middle age, eros and cultural bankruptcy, and eros and marriage. For those who savored the civilized talk of Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maud's and Alain Tanner's Jonah Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000, this movie will be especially appealing.

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