Eps 1: The fall of the American empire
Bigras deduces the money was stolen from the West End Gang, which was keeping its funds in a store owned by banker Vladimir François.
The Fall of the American Empire won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 63rd Valladolid International Film Festival in October 2018.
Toronto Film Festival Adds 'Fall of the American Empire' to Canadian Lineup" .
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Alex Lynch
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The decline of the American empire focused on social ills, barbaric invasions dealt with ideology, and the case revolves around the same characters and takes place in the same moral universe in which the middle-class Montreal intellectuals of Arcand are going through various crises of conscience. After the fall, the 77-year-old Canadian legend has turned his back on his past and is in the midst of a new era of political and cultural upheaval. His often well-played mix of historical and political commentary comes together to score patently without offering anything particularly new.
Pierre-Paul presents himself as a kind of saint in crisis, a generous guy who has always given to the homeless, volunteered in soup kitchens and believed in the power of Divine Providence. To paraphrase Wittgenstein, he then clumsily argues that there is no reason for him not to move around the world anymore if other people have to suffer for his success, but that he has to paint himself in a different light.
He has just split up with his girlfriend because she was frozen out of existence, and now the armed robber is dead on his feet with a bag of stolen cash. His girlfriend, who has a 12-year-old son to raise, doesn't quite see it that way.
Arcand, who won an Oscar for his film Arcand of the Barbarian Invasions, is returning to his old location for the first time since his last film, and he has returned with a new cast of characters.
All Pierre-Paul wants is a long conversation about the philosophy of life, but halfway through, the spell is brutally broken by a biker (Sylvain Remy Girard) who tries to persuade him to think. Pierre and Paul have fantastic relationships, while torture and destruction take place in search of the missing money. La l'Empire Americanain is a Canadian crime 2.0 from 2018, written and directed by Denys Arcand, with Jean - Claude Van Damme, Yann LeCun and Yans Hsiao - Ming.
It's the story of a man (Landry) who discovers two bags of money after an armed robbery in Montreal, but doesn't know what to do with it.
After its Quebec premiere last June, Arcand says they have yet to see how the film reaches English-speaking audiences. It was shown at the Valladolid International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize, and in New York.
It should come as no surprise that "The Fall of the American Empire" is not as popular in the United States as it is in Canada. As with so many aspects of American life, he imagines that the reaction will likely be divided along political lines. And while some see it as an attempt to oust Trump from the Oval Office, Arcand has a warning to be careful what you wish for.
The Canuck in question is Pierre - Paul Alexandre Landry, who spends the opening scene telling his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend that he is too intelligent to be successful in the world. I will go to an allegorical level and have almost nothing to do with America, because I want to say that Canada is represented by a "philosophical hero," while the US represents a thieving gangster and the money he finds.
He makes a good point about how we tend to be stupid mules, and even if we're right, it's hard to completely support a guy. He's an intelligent, smart guy, a graduate who gave him a sunny, book-lined apartment in Montreal. But before "The Fall of the American Empire" begins, he pesters his girlfriend's bank clerk.
Even Pierre - serious and ethically rigid - Paul is the sort of flimsy, well-meaning hero Joel McCrea might have played.
The demise of the American empire is taking place, the tone is more uneven and never quite reaches the comedic heights that are constantly spiralling out of control. In intoxicatingly violent times, the film becomes a profoundly comic attitude that is thrown into the work of a crime thriller. Arcand makes for a better day, but as we discover, it is far from perfect and never really reaches its full potential.
All of this means that the film is sloppy and the actors lack commitment, and it is clear that some of the observations regarding the portrayal of America's role in the war against the Soviet Union, particularly in the context of the assassination of President George W. Bush, are fishy.