Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain (1986)

	Also Known As: The Decline of the American Empire
	Year of first release: 1986
	Director: Denys Arcand (Les Invasions Barbares)
	Actors: Dominique Michel, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal
	Country: CDN
	Genre: Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 06.06.2014, DVD, 11" computer screen
Synopsis: Sexual revelations emerge when a group of academics and their partners spend a weekend at a country retreat.
Review: I took the opportunity of a long train ride to watch this movie I have been hearing about for so long. It is sold as a movie about sex, and if I can't deny they talk about it a lot, I find that it is also a movie about relationships. By the way it is funny that it might be 30 years-old, the preoccupations of men and women are still the same. It reminds me of the more recent French Le Coeur des Hommes (both 1 & 2), but on a more serious tone. Like said in the movie, when you put intellectuals together they talk, and indeed they do that a lot. It is quite interesting to hear their theories and anecdotes about the couple, sex, and the world (thus the title of the movie). I found it nicely done that during the first half of the movie we see separately the men cooking dinner and the women at the gym. Both group talk about their relationships and their sexual adventures. During the second half they meet in a nice lake house for dinner, but their topic of discussion doesn't change much. The introduction of the different characters is well done thanks to short flashbacks. Although it is not my usual genre of movies,  I can easily understand how it gained its status of cult, mainly thanks to three elements: good director, good dialogs and natural actors.
Rating: 7 /10