{"id":972,"date":"2008-03-19T00:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/03\/i-knew-it\/"},"modified":"2008-03-19T00:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T00:34:00","slug":"i-knew-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2008\/03\/i-knew-it.html","title":{"rendered":"I knew it!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Denys Arcand is nothing if not obsessed with history. So when I heard that he conceived his newest film as part of a \u201ctrilogy\u201d with The Decline of the American Empire<\/i> (1986) and The Barbarian Invasions<\/a><\/i> (2003), I just knew that the title of the new film \u2014 Days of Darkness<\/a><\/i> \u2014 could not be correct. Surely, given that the original French title is L\u2019\u00c2ge des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres<\/i>, a phrase like The Dark Ages<\/i> would have been more accurate \u2014 and would better follow the historical trajectory suggested by the titles of its predecessors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure enough, today\u2019s Globe and Mail<\/a><\/i> reports:<\/p>\n

Ah, the graveyard. As personally upbeat as Arcand seems to be, he sees signs and portents of doom everywhere: global warming, epidemics, illiteracy and superstition.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I think we are going towards another Dark Age. After the first Dark and Middle Ages and the fall of the Roman Empire, society crumbled for a period and there was a rise in faith and religious wars. I see this coming again in modern times.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the movie was originally going to be called The Dark Ages<\/i> but Arcand said that American distributors objected, perhaps because the title was either too literate or too negative. Logically, The Dark Ages<\/i> would be the sensible follow-up to his last film, the Oscar-winning The Barbarian Invasions<\/i> (2003). Along with the Oscar-nominated The Decline of the American Empire<\/i> (1986), the three films form a loose trilogy.<\/p>\n

If those previous films were dramas marked by mordant wit, Days of Darkness<\/i> \u2013 which opens on Friday in Toronto and Vancouver \u2013 represents a shift to the broadly satiric. Arcand described it as \u201cboth funnier and more sombre. It\u2019s a film of extremes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh well, titular issues aside, I can\u2019t wait to see this film. Especially since I hear that, like The Barbarian Invasions<\/i> before it, it also features a cameo by at least one of the characters from Arcand\u2019s other<\/i> Oscar-nominated film, Jesus of Montreal<\/a><\/i> (1989).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denys Arcand is nothing if not obsessed with history. So when I heard that he conceived his newest film as part of a \u201ctrilogy\u201d with The Decline of the American Empire (1986) and The Barbarian Invasions (2003), I just knew that the title of the new film \u2014 Days of Darkness \u2014 could not be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nI knew it!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Denys Arcand is nothing if not obsessed with history. 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