classicsoncall Review of Waiting for the Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians (2019)

"Pain is truth. All else is subject to doubt."

[7/10 · 26 October 2020]

The film has all the look and feel of an indictment on British colonialism, even if the subject location is unknown and the reigning authority is unidentified. The story quickly gets to the point that the barbarians one is waiting for are the colonial soldiers dispatched to quell a supposedly nomadic uprising by an indigenous people with no means to fight a war. Johnny Depp turns in another off kilter performance, not as flamboyant say as a Jack Sparrow, but bizarre enough to qualify as one of his numerous oddball characterizations. Mark Rylance portrays the magistrate of a desert outpost who wisely rules as a humanist in a live and let live manner, recognizing that leaving well enough alone is the only sane way to conduct affairs when the potential opposition can become deadly upon a moments' notice. It takes a while to get to that point, and in the meantime, the magistrate evokes the imagery of a humble Jesus washing the feet and tending to the depradations of a nomad woman savagely beaten by her captors. He maintains a stoic and dignified manner, even while being charged with treasonously consorting with the desert barbarians. My favorite scene was where the magistrate made up the story to go with the slips of carved ancient writing, only to invite further wrath from a nominal superior. Because the story was fictional, it left me with an empty feeling at the end. There was also the dubious continuity of the seasons during which the story took place, as it proceeded in order from summer to winter, and then from spring to autumn. Better if that were not even mentioned, as the look of the desert locale didn't change at all.