Worth: $16.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Mark Rylance, Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Greta Scacchi, Gana Bayarsaikhan, Sam Reid
Intro:
…thoughtful, soulful filmmaking…
The cruelty, confusion and strategic mistakes of historical colonialism are well-noted, whether it’s the Belgians pillaging The Congo, the French tearing apart Algeria, or the British decimating the First Nations people of Australia. With deft and often unpleasant assurance, the weighty but economic drama, Waiting For The Barbarians – adapted from the novel by J.M Coetzee – distils them all into one cogent whole by creating a fictional territory lorded over by a fictional empire plagued by all of the flaws of history’s colonial powers. The results are bracing and thought provoking, but occasionally off-putting too, with the film’s depiction of torture and debasement difficult to watch.
The superb Mark Rylance (Bridge Of Spies, Wolf Hall, Dunkirk) is the thoughtful, peace-minded Magistrate of a small, ramshackle fort-come-town in the middle of a harsh, unforgiving desert. Though peaceful, there is constant fear and concern surrounding the “barbarians” that live in the hills around the settlement. With the arrival of the pompous Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp), these largely non-existent tensions are stoked up as he sets about interrogating and torturing the stray members of the indigenous population that he can round up, pressurising them into confessions about oncoming war. The Magistrate quietly battles against Joll’s methods, but he is no match for the powers of the empire, which is thrown into even starker relief with the arrival of Joll’s sadistic second-in-command, Officer Mandel (Robert Pattinson).
Colombian director Ciro Guerra (Embrace Of The Serpent, Birds Of Passage) concocts a fascinating mix of poetry and savagery here, sitting somewhere between David Lean and Alejandro Jodorowsky with its combination of placeless, mythical aberrance and epic storytelling. The performances, meanwhile, are curiously diverse, with the naturalism of Rylance playing oddly against the Brando-esque near pantomime of Depp, but also ingeniously playing up the futility of the Magistrate’s plight. Wedged in between these two heavyweights is the very impressive Pattinson, who sweeps in at the 75-minute mark and owns all of his scenes with an effortlessly vicious haughtiness. There is much tension and sadness to Waiting For The Barbarians, and while the film’s good-guys-don’t-always-win ethos is certainly a truism when it comes to colonialism, its distinct lack of a pay-off dials down the satisfaction levels. An anguished scream at the horrors of history, Waiting For The Barbarians is thoughtful, soulful filmmaking that boldly makes few concessions for the audience.
