Yesterday saw the end The World According to Barney, the movie. It was a mistake. I have mind still full of the wonderful novel by Mordecai Richler, Barney version (why have not respected in Castilian the original title of the movie and book?). And with that memory alive so recent and the subtleties of the text, the meanders by running the memory of Barney, the snares, omissions, judgments or ironic thick and furious attacks that deploys the powerful first person in the novel, that Barney in old age increasingly beset by Alzheimer's wants to offer his version of what happened, it was impossible to enjoy the film with clear eyes. If I had seen a month ago, or in a few years, I guess I could having forged a very different view. Teachers many movies, such classic Hollywood movies were based on novels that do not know: better, much better, our consideration of this film is more unbiased.
But I think it's a film very neat, dignified, and Paul Giamatti, the actor who plays Barney, proves to be as great as in other stories in which men also embroidered fundamentally good, but they carried within striking dose awkwardness, anger and resentment. Men (remember Sideways or American Splendor ?) Beaten, lack of balance, elegance and safety that other people exhibit the living. The Barney of this world mess up, eat or drink too much and talk nonsense in the most inopportune times, so that sometimes, instead of showing their generosity and foresight, are assholes. Then, oh, repent and flogging, but it is too late.
I will not detail the many aspects of the novel that are missing in the film, several of which are essential in the life of Barney. But I write in a place plagued by nationalism, I regret that something has gone without being critical, permeates the present (year 1995) of the novel: the question of Quebec independence. The novel is not to be deeply Canadian (that has also been lost in the movie) is set in a Montreal who vote the possible secession of Quebec. In that referendum, 1995 French-speaking separatists were closer than ever of success, to achieve the 49.6 of the vote. And Barney and some of his friends, biblingües as Mordecai Richler (author, of course, important books against the myths of Quebec nationalism), but contrary to segregation, not constrained in scathing judgments about what they read and hear, on leaders of the Parti Québécois and language inspectors, fining those who forget not French in any tag or text (that would be a felony), but those who do not have English texts in a size much lower than in French.
Finally, do not like me. If you read Barney's version, do not go to the movies. At least until forgetfulness not completed its work.
PS A very minor detail: as a tribute to Mordecai Richler, a particularly famous and beloved author in Canada, despite its poignancy, the film appear as side the country's best known filmmakers, Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg and in two scenes, Denys Arcand, director, among others, The decline of American empire and The Barbarian Invasions. A French-language independence, but a close friend of Richler. And friendship comes first.
Enjoying
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