Waiting for the Barbarians
Mark Rylance shines in J.M. Coetzee’s adaptation of his own award-winning novel about colonial aggression.
A good man in Africa: Mark Rylance (left)
There are no Barbarians. There are a nomadic people with
their traditions, their gifts and their secrets who inhabit a desert nation, as
they have done for millennia. Then an imperial force moves into the area,
setting up an outpost for an unnamed governing ‘Empire.’ The official in charge
of this particular settlement – known as The Magistrate – is a man of letters, a
historian, an archaeologist and an antiquarian. He studies the writings of the
indigenous people, the better to understand their customs and their past. He is
an enigmatic figure but is a modest and reasonable man intent on “keeping the world
on its course.” Then the outpost is visited by a certain Colonel Joll, an
outwardly civil, meticulously tailored officer who has been charged with “cleaning
up the local administrations.” Requesting a private interview with a reputed
sheep rustler and his ailing nephew – whom the Magistrate suspects is innocent –
Joll has the old man blinded and tortured to death. If anybody is a Barbarian,
it is the Colonel and his predetermined agenda…
Waiting for the Barbarians
is the first English-language film from the Colombian director Ciro Guerra. Guerra,
whose credits include the critically acclaimed Embrace of the Serpent and Birds
of Passage, has a knack for conjuring up otherworldly states. Here, he
retains his mystical, leisurely grip on his narrative and comes armed with two
major assets: the Oscar-winning English cinematographer Chris Menges (now 79)
and the actor Mark Rylance. From the opening shot of a horse-drawn carriage
dwarfed by the spectre of snow-blanketed mountains, the film asserts its visual
pedigree. A citadel appears on the horizon and within we see the indigenous townsfolk
going about their business of conveying water, threshing wheat and baking
msemen. The camera then alights on Mark Rylance at his desk who, via a shaft of
sunlight, is deciphering the symbol on an ancient coin. Few actors can do stillness
as well as Rylance and he immediately brings this noble, cultivated man to life.
His Magistrate is not a million miles from the self-possessed Soviet
intelligence officer Rudolf Abel he played in Bridge of Spies, or indeed his Thomas Cromwell in the BBC’s Wolf Hall. Rylance is rarely bestowed with
a leading role in a major film and it’s a joy to spend time with this hypnotic actor.
Such is Ciro Guerra’s standing, it is alleged that Johnny
Depp contacted him in order to bag a role in his film. No doubt Guerra saw this
as a huge compliment – and a marketing coup – but Depp’s collaboration does
rather alter the tenor of the piece. While Depp contributes one of his finest –
and most restrained – performances in recent memory (as Colonel Joll), his mere
presence brings a different kind of baggage to the table. Moreover, we also
have Robert Pattinson in a secondary role, further introducing a note of stellar
congestion and reducing the integrity of the whole. Waiting for the Barbarians – adapted by J.M. Coetzee from his own 1980
novel – is a chilling indictment of colonial tyranny and casts its own shocking
and exquisite spell. The addition of the Mongolian actress Gana Bayarsaikhan –
as a nomad both crippled and partly blinded by Joll’s troops – goes some way to
redress the balance and adds an enigmatic and intriguing edge to explaining the
Magistrate’s psychological naiveté. All this contributes to Guerra’s transcendent
parable but one can’t help but wonder how much more effective it might have
been had it been filmed in his native language.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Mark
Rylance, Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Gana Bayarsaikhan, Greta Scacchi, David
Dencik, Sam Reid, Harry Melling, Bill Milner, Gursed Dalkhsuren, Isabella Nefar.
Dir Ciro Guerra, Pro Michael Fitzgerald, Olga Segura, Andrea
Iervolino and Monika Bacardi, Screenplay
J.M. Coetzee, Ph Chris Menges, Pro Des Crispian Sallis and Domenico
Sica, Ed Jacopo Quadri, Music Giampiero Ambrosi, Costumes Carlo Poggioli.
Iervolino Entertainment/AMB-The Movie Partnership.
113 mins. Italy/USA. 2019. Rel: 7 September 2020. Available on iTunes. Cert. 15.