1 Oscar and 3 Cesars: After this world famous saga, he is back with a comedy about the clash of generations!

Four years after the fall of the American Empire, Canadian director Denis Arcand, who won an Oscar and 3 Cesars in 2004 for Barbarian Invasions, returns with a vow. The latter finds his favorite actor Remy Girard, already in the casting of Jesus of Montreal, The Decline of the American Empire, Barbarian Invasions and The Fall of the American Empire. The cast also includes Sophie Lorraine, Marie-Mai and Guillain Tremblay.

Remy Girard here plays Jean-Michel, a 70-year-old single man who has lost all his attachment to this society and seems to have no more expectations for life. But at the nursing home where she lives, Susan, the director, is attacked by young protesters who demand the destruction of an offensive mural. As he wryly observes this post-pandemic era where everything seems to be going, Jean-Michel takes control of his life and the lives of others.

This comedy about the clash of generations was born in the director’s mind after a visit to a museum in New York. The large mural depicted the meeting of the Indians of Manhattan Island with the Dutch explorer. The director explains in the press kit: “It didn’t bother anyone for years. One day a group demanded its destruction on the pretext that this painting was an insult to the locals, the first arrivals. The museum staff reacted very well: they put a window in front of the window. A huge table and some written notes, corrected errors and inaccuracies.

It read: “It is impossible that this meeting could have taken place under such circumstances” and “The Indians you see are not exactly dressed as they should be.” Everyone was satisfied, and the storefront — somewhat self-explanatory — still exists today. This event excited my imagination. Why not develop, I said to myself, in the Sistine Chapel, small notes indicating: “God the Father is represented here as a white man, old and probably heterosexual, but it is up to you to imagine his place, a black woman, young and pregnant”. .

In my film, I clearly refused to restore the Sistine Chapel and settled for a small nursing home “fresco” and an overworked director in front of a group of young people demanding that he “rewrite history”.

The decline of our civilization?

As in the case of his previous feature films, Denis Arcand tries to highlight the excesses of society and the decay of our civilization. He states: “We are now entering a radically new world called digital civilization, or information technology, or whatever. The arrival of artificial intelligence will now shatter our last certainty. The world of tomorrow will have almost nothing in common with the one we know. The Middle Ages had almost nothing to do with the Roman and Greek civilizations.

However, the 82-year-old director does not make fun of the protesters in the film who demand respect for “First Nations”. According to him, these last ones are even true. It develops: “Their fight is just. But they are ‘concerned citizens,'” as a First Nations Indian woman in my film observes. Yes, of course, the outrage against the painting is a noble cause, but First Nations descendants have much bigger problems to deal with right now. , rather than the painting itself. Saying abuse in a nursing home or museum. Drugs, housing, access to drinking water, anyway?“

“I admit that the battles that are fought all over the world are justified. But, to understand better, those who lead them often take extravagant poses. And it is this extravagance that serves as a satire.”

Will You can see it in theaters this Wednesday.