MovieChat Forums > Les invasions barbares (2004) Discussion > Sébastien and Nathalie, and his Fiancée....

Sébastien and Nathalie, and his Fiancée...


Who else thought that Sébastien and Nathalie could od really loved each other if given the chance. I don't beleive that him and his fiancée really loed each other...It was more of a perfect match for them both as opposed to real love. In the last scenes when Séb. and Nat. kiss and she pushes him away and then you see his fiancée (that had previously renouced love) say to him "I love you" and all he did was kiss the top of her end and look out the window... My question his what do yuo think it all meant and what does their futur hold?

"I have so many problems I think about killing myself, but that wouldn't solve them all."

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Considering her earlier speech about the fact that her parents marreid for love and it failed, I think this could be just an empty gesture on her part. Both know that they are not in love but still are compatible and like one another enough to hope to have *some* form of happyness. It is a case of chosing to be comfortable over having a passionate relationship with all its ups and downs.

Blastcap

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It's just sad...Life should be more than that!

"I have so many problems I think about killing myself, but that wouldn't solve them all."

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I guess it depend how you see it. Some people are lucky to find true love but that is rare. In most cases, you simply try to find a relationship in which both can find happiness.

In the cases of Sébastien, his choice was between a passionate but potentialy destructive relationship or a passive but more constructive one. Nathalie saw this and pushed him away. The way I saw it, its not a question of making a good or a bad choice but simply one you think you can live with.

Blastcap

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In see what you mean, but given the same situation would you be willing to give up a potential relationship with someone you could really love as opposed to the safer choice?

In the same situation what would you do?

"I have so many problems I think about killing myself, but that wouldn't solve them all."

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> In see what you mean, but given the same situation would you be willing to
> give up a potential relationship with someone you could really love as
> opposed to the safer choice?

I'm not him so I can't say for sure.

However, If my choices were between an exciting junky and a somewhat boring art dealer, I'd go with the second. Might not be a lot of sparks but at least I'll know my stereo will be there when I come home. Beside, as one scene foreshadows, finding her dead one day from an overdose is a big possibility.

Blastcap (not having the most romantic outlook)

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Obviously if they stayed together while she was still on heroin or trying to get clean it wouldn't be the best relationship ever. That's why when I picture the rest of the story I see Sébastien getting married to his fiancée and then years later he mets back up with a sober and clean Nathalie and then sparks fly. I know that kind of stupid, but that's what I picture happenning!

"I have so many problems I think about killing myself, but that wouldn't solve them all."

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> I see Sébastien getting married to his fiancée and then years later he mets
> back up with a sober and clean Nathalie and then sparks fly. I know that
> kind of stupid, but that's what I picture happenning!

It just mean that you like happy endings, nothing wrong with that.

I, on the other hand, am a sadistic bastard who enjoy seeing people suffer.

....or so my ex-girlfirend told me....

Blastcap

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I want an happy ending, but at the same time if the movie would of ended on a happier note I wouldn't of enjoyed it as much.

"I have so many problems I think about killing myself, but that wouldn't solve them all."

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Ok my english is not perfect but here goes:

Nathalie was in the process of quitting heroin towards the end (methadone therapy) and Sébastien got to know who his father really was and that changed his perspective of life. He will not stay with the art dealer chick.

The film leaves you with the idea (or the hope) that Nathalie and Sébastien will end up together. What makes me say that is that scene where the friend of Rémy has a dispute with his young (dumb) wife about lending the country house: he says to Sébastien, with a sad and resigned look on his face: "it's always like this, this is my life". Sébastien looks at him with fear and sadness. He doesn't want that.

But I think that it's not really important to know wether or not they will end up together. Remember, Sébastien is above all a symbol, the symbol of the new capitalism ("here comes their prince" says Rémy), and Nathalie is the "angel of death", her purpose is to accompany Rémy to his death. She does change in the process; she's the symbol of confused and disillusioned youth, but there is hope for her.

This film is a bridge between generations. It is sadness and hope and pessimism and humor, all mixed together in an intentional blur. Don't explect clear answers from Arcand, his film is also yours to make.


Be the eye, be the object.

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I just saw the movie and I think that Sébastien and Nathalie will end up together. I think Gaelle's "I love you" on the plane was to tell us that their relationship is going where her parents' are.

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Don't forget, everyone... this director has used these characters before... although the film does seem to have an ending that isn't exactly open-ended (the whole Graduate thing with Katherine Ross looking at Dustin Hoffman but he is already looking away from her, signifying he will be the distant husband just like their fathers, etc.), it's possible there could be another sequel in which Sebastian and Nathalie get together... but probably not.

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Ha ! I've had a few destructive relationships with crazy or emotionally unstable types in my younger days (haven't we all ?), and while they may have been 'exciting' while they lasted, no one wants to live like that for very long ! Too intense and destructive ...

Eventually I was more than happy to settle down with a normal, 'boring' type ....

(I'll bet all the people posting here about the 'What if he had chosen the heroin addict' are young adults who haven't lived much ... C'mon people !! Wake up !! Dating ANY kind of addict is not romantic, IT'S HELL !!

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This movie had a constant struggle between true love, lust, and formal love (that which exists just because people feel the need to be "in love"). The ending was a final recap of many of the themes of the movie. As Nathalie was contemplating the history books, she then went to kiss Sébastien. This reiterates the theme that history repeats itself. Sébastien and Gaelle based their relationship around formal love. They did it just because they thought that was the way love ought to be. In this. Sébastien is repeating the mistakes of his father. It is heavily implied that Sébastien and Nathalie share a true love, not just lust, and that all possibility of their relationship has been thrown out the window due to Sébastien's rush into formal love.

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The ending...

Life goes on. The son now knows what the father was feeling in his passionate living of life. There are moral dilemmas. What is love? The choices... the consequences...

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if the idea of the filmmaker was to show a potential "falling in love" with the junkie and the son, it wasn't done entirely too well. That main actor (seb) was in general very cold and unemotional. I also didn't get the relationship between the two of them. Old family friends?

Anyway, if I was seb i would TOTALLY stay with the art dealer. She seemed really cool in my opinion.

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Surely will S¨¦bastien love Nathalie, who is obviously much more attractive compared with his dispassionate fiancee. They had some innocent playmate memory in childhood, and during Remy's dying days they helped each other, and this sweet feeling has naturally developed into an irresistible love to S¨¦bastien.

But Nathalie restrained her love at the last kissbye scene. This angel is too good to destory his fiancee's marriage and may she is afraid that the their pasts and lifestyles are too different to result in a happy life together.

As to the shrewd art dealer, who had shared her opinion with Remy about her disbelieving in LOVE, must have painfully awared of her situation and ironically said to S¨¦bastien "I LOVE you!"in the plane at last.

In fact,everyone of the young generation has changed in some degree.And I don't think there is a final answer now,since people are all in the changing progress.Maybe Arcand will tell us more in another decade.:-)Maybe he won't...In fact,sometimes no final ending is just the best ending,like Roman Holiday and Lost in Translation.

Too many times we have wondered about what the reasonable final ending should be for those seperated lovers,it is really quite a waste of our lives.:-)

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I agree that the ending was deliberately left open, and I wondered if the movie was setting up another film with the "next generation," especially since the issues of love, stability, passion, adultery, and so on, are explored extensively in both movies. I think Sebatien's lack of response to his fiancee's "I love you" on the plane is supposed to signal the audience that he's wondering if he's made the right choice. I would like to think that he's considering whether passion is more appealing than he has thought up until now. I also wonder if he will repeat his father's behavior and marry his fiancee and simply cheat on her with Nathalie. In any event, it's wonderful when a movie ends and you continue to think about it!

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[deleted]

Obviously Sebastien had based his whole life up til then on trying to be as unlike his father as possible.

The scenes with Natalie were presumably to demonstrate that "the apple doesn't falll far from the tree" - that Sebastien can be tempted and that he may well develop into the philanderer his father was. Or at least that he understands better on an emotional level why his father was like that.

As for Gaelle, I suppose she makes a declaration of love because she has seen Sebastien's attraction to/bond with Natalie and feels threatened. Has she changed her mind about love and realised that she really does love him, or does she just say that because she is desperate not to lose him? Also left open in my view.




"I don’t like the term torture. I prefer to call it nastiness."

Donald Rumsfeld

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if you want to see another kiss like the one Nathalie bestows on Sebastien, only longer (since nobody pushes anybody away), you must see the scene in Brokeback Mountain in which Jack and Ennis see eachother for the first time in 4 years...Ennis really lights into him...I kept thinkiing where have I seen that before..he grabs the head, and then locks lips with..er, him...

We see those in the light,
But those in darkness,
We don't see,

Bertolt Brecht

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my 2 cents is even if they stay with each other, it won't last long; or maybe she would just be his secret mistress, like Remy.

He has everything in life, and she has nada, love could not save her, but the house she got from Séb could, it is a house of memory, love and treasure.

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