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Post by stephen on Aug 7, 2020 19:10:06 GMT
Long have I awaited Columbian director Ciro Guerra’s ambitious English-language debut: an adaptation of Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee’s slim-yet-devastating novel Waiting for the Barbarians. Coetzee, who adapted his own work here, is the master of the allegory, and Guerra certainly transplants that nascent feeling of timelessness and non-distinction here. The film depicts a far-flung outpost in a desert region that could be Mongolia, could be Morocco, could be Arizona for all we know. The outpost is under the command of the nameless Magistrate, whose soft and gentle nature belies the fact that he speaks on behalf of the Empire, who seeks to subjugate the nomadic peoples—the titular barbarians—beyond the outpost’s reach.
This benevolent soul, stirred to beautiful life by Mark Rylance, seeks to understand the peoples whose land they are usurping. He develops a rapport, learns the language, treats them as people rather than as faceless enemies. But the Magistrate’s way of thinking does not align with the Empire’s, as we see when the military authority of the region, Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp), arrives to show the iron fist beneath the silk glove. Joll’s method of control involves torture, imprisonment, and no room for mercy. For his part, Depp eschews his normal outsized tics in favor of a carefully modulated stoicism; one could almost say he studied Mark Rylance’s approach on Bridge of Spies and took a leaf from the Oscar-winner’s book. He leaves it to Robert Pattinson, as Joll’s vicious aide-de-camp, for the explosive theatrics. Unfortunately, neither actor really gets to relish in their respective roles for very long; true to the novel’s form, they are merely representative of the domineering regime rather than flesh-and-blood characters.
Rylance weathers the elliptical nature of the story a bit better, in no small part because he’s perhaps the actor most suited to conveying dazzling amounts of nuance and personality with the most minimal effort and material provided. The way that he portrays the Magistrate’s routine and his tender empathy when faced with the brutality inflicted by the Empire he represents truly evokes Coetzee’s prose the best. However, when film characters are reduced to anonymous ciphers, it can create an issue in keeping the audiences at too much of a distance, and unfortunately, despite some truly impressive work from newcomer actors like Gana Bayarsaikhan (who plays a young girl—sorry, Girl—who kindles a truly human reaction from the Magistrate that will come back to haunt him), there’s only so much they can do with the short shrift given by the film’s aesop-like structure.
Even so, there is an awful lot to admire and take in. Guerra’s direction is potent and deft. To aid him in capturing the film’s desolate borderland feel, he’s enlisted the aid of Chris Menges (who couped two deserving Oscars in the 1980s for films featuring similar subjects). No one, not even the mighty Deakins, can shoot a barren woodland like Menges, and he’s at top form here. The score and production design are also very finely calibrated, and serve to give the outpost and surrounding region a lived-in feel without nailing it down to a specific culture or style.
All in all, Waiting for the Barbarians isn’t as mesmerizingly Herzogian as Guerra’s own Embrace of the Serpent was, but nor is it as baggy as Birds of Passage (a film I respect but can’t quite bring myself to truly like). It is about as fair a stab at evoking Coetzee’s allegorical tone as anyone could achieve, but there are certain works—poems, songs, even novels—that might rely too much on the reader to fill in the gaps, and that might not work as well in film.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 8, 2020 10:24:57 GMT
~6.0-6.5/10The film version of the book is a disappointment because the book is that major - this movie for all its virtues goes about it too literally and too passively but if it wasn't based on that material it would get more leeway. It's sort of like 1984 (a better film) - it can't rise to the experience of reading it but you get excited about SEEING it anyway. The highpoint - and it comes early - is a highlight of the book - Johnny Depp eerie (also wearily) and memorable as Colonel Joll looks at what appears to be directly into the camera says the line "Pain is truth, all else is subject to doubt".....that startling moment - delivered by Depp in a way that is direct, mysterious and contradictory is never really followed up on in ways that make you reflect on its complexities. I would actually argue a better version of this was made 50 years ago - Burn!(1969) gets this down more interestingly and has a better (and more thought out) performance than anything here - by Brando. The central turns here seem to be lacking any male ego relative to each other or at all even: Rylance is noble and suffers nobly - he underplays (expertly theoretically, slightly dull and incomplete in actuality) ......Pattinson's not as expert as Rylance so he seems merely functional. A lot of actors could have done what he's doing here when he calls Rylance a "traitor" - you never feel that HE'S saying that - merely the script requires someone to articulate it ..........and both actors will be (overly) praised for merely fulfilling the book's roles at the service of a director who shot the book, and didn't enhance it. Relative to the book you get no sense of time (or seasons) passing - or repeating - which is crucial to the text. Still this works fitfully in an overarching and episodic way - if you stick with it a lesser version of Waiting For The Barbarians is better than none at all.....but....... read the book.
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Post by stephen on Aug 8, 2020 19:18:49 GMT
~6.0-6.5/10The film version of the book is a disappointment because the book is that major - this movie for all its virtues goes about it too literally and too passively but if it wasn't based on that material it would get more leeway. It's sort of like 1984 (a better film) - it can't rise to the experience of reading it but you get excited about SEEING it anyway. The highpoint - and it comes early - is a highlight of the book - Johnny Depp eerie (also wearily) and memorable as Colonel Joll looks at what appears to be directly into the camera says the line "Pain is truth, all else is subject to doubt".....that startling moment - delivered by Depp in a way that is direct, mysterious and contradictory is never really followed up on in ways that make you reflect on its complexities. I would actually argue a better version of this was made 50 years ago - Burn!(1969) gets this down more interestingly and has a better (and more thought out) performance than anything here - by Brando. The central turns here seem to be lacking any male ego relative to each other or at all even: Rylance is noble and suffers nobly - he underplays (expertly theoretically, slightly dull and incomplete in actuality) ......Pattinson's not as expert as Rylance so he seems merely functional. A lot of actors could have done what he's doing here when he calls Rylance a "traitor" - you never feel that HE'S saying that - merely the script requires someone to articulate it ..........and both actors will be (overly) praised for merely fulfilling the book's roles at the service of a director who shot the book, and didn't enhance it. Relative to the book you get no sense of time (or seasons) passing - or repeating - which is crucial to the text. Still this works fitfully in an overarching and episodic way - if you stick with it a lesser version of Waiting For The Barbarians is better than none at all.....but....... read the book. Yeah, I definitely don't think it's a replacement of the novel by any means, and I think it proves that there are certain works that just can't elicit the same tone and power as the text. Not because it's impossible to tell the same story or even to tell a great one in a different medium, but what makes the novel work the way it does is how much it feels like a fable, rather than a flesh-and-blood narrative. The same approach just doesn't work in cinema -- at least, not in the same way. But I think it's still a noble attempt, and what I did like about it still feels very effective. That last shot was *chef's kiss*.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 12, 2020 21:46:29 GMT
I liked this a lot. I'm at a disadvantage having not read the book, although maybe that was an advantage because I had no idea what to expect. The film lags in the middle portion with the woman but not so much that it affects the film negatively, and the ensuing meeting in the desert kickstarts the devastating final act. The story offers an examination of colonialism's chauvinistic self-destructiveness that's not new but feels fresh in this context and often riveting with this script and these performances (and this cinematography--Chris Menges still got it). For my money I haven't seen a better Rylance performance, and Depp and Pattinson are solid as minor antagonists, especially Depp with his insectoid spectacles who fashions extraordinary menace by doing very little and underplaying everything. His Colonel Joll is a malignant specter.
Beautiful production design and costumes too.
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Post by stephen on Aug 12, 2020 21:53:07 GMT
I liked this a lot. I'm at a disadvantage having not read the book, although maybe that was an advantage because I had no idea what to expect. The film lags in the middle portion with the woman but not so much that it affects the film negatively, and the ensuing meeting in the desert kickstarts the devastating final act. The story offers an examination of colonialism's chauvinistic self-destructiveness that's not new but feels fresh in this context and often riveting with this script and these performances (and this cinematography--Chris Menges still got it). For my money I haven't seen a better Rylance performance, and Depp and Pattinson are solid as minor antagonists, especially Depp with his insectoid spectacles who fashions extraordinary menace by doing very little and underplaying everything. His Colonel Joll is a malignant specter. Beautiful production design and costumes too. Have you seen Wolf Hall yet? Rylance in that is world-class -- my favorite television performance ever.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 12, 2020 22:24:51 GMT
Have you seen Wolf Hall yet? Rylance in that is world-class -- my favorite television performance ever. Not yet sadly. I pulled up his page on Letterboxd and apparently only seen three of his films--this one, Dunkirk, and Bridge of Spies, so not a great sampling at all haha. But he hasn't been as prolific in film as one would expect. He's as much a theater actor as a film/TV actor, probably moreso. But anyways, I thought he was sublime here. I'd be amazed if he gets bumped out of my top five by year's end.
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Post by JangoB on Aug 16, 2020 11:29:59 GMT
Rylance IS the movie for me really. Like Tommen, I haven't read the book so this is my first time encountering the story (I suppose I should be encouraged by the fact that the author wrote the script himself). I did like it. It's kind of impossible for me not to experience this story through the prism of horrendous events that are happening in Belarus right now so the movie did have a layer of unexpected resonance for me. And Rylance's Magistrate was the primary reason for that - a character who upon seeing the barbarism of the higher-ups around him doesn't succumb to it but maintains his principles and thus not only keeps standing alongside the oppressed but even experiences some of their plight first-hand. The quiet nobility of this character is pretty rousing and Rylance is the perfect actor to portray all that without getting lost in actorly self aggrandizement that a lesser talent could've exhibited. Once again he delivers a beautifully human performance of immense power. My favorite scene is probably the one where he tries to come up with a letter: he sits in the quiet of the night all by himself and not merely writes the words and reads them out loud - he lives them in that moment, his emotions flowing right out of him seemingly without him even noticing it. Kind of a great little moment in that performance.
Despite its somewhat grim tone, the movie's central belief is very optimistic - that if we keep on the right side of humanity and reason, we may eventually prevail. But I think Guerra's approach is a bit too detached and distant for the movie's own good. That sense of being removed from the events and observing them seemingly at a distance keeps the movie from reaching higher highs for me. It's decently shot, certainly well acted, its themes resonate. And yet it always kept me at an arm's length, with Rylance doing his best to shorten that distance. The most thought-provoking aspect of the movie isn't its main message which can be easily summarised by the final line from "Cannibal Holocaust" (just replace the word 'cannibals' with 'barbarians'). The thing about the story that raises the most questions is the Magistrate's whole relationship with the Girl - is this genuine affection? Is this his narrow-minded attempt to repay the sins of his people? Is this a self-serving quest for inner peace for him? I think all these things are worth thinking about. But ultimately that's not enough for me to consider this a great film. I certainly don't think it warrants the negativity it has received from the reviewers (a shame we live in times where Netflix teenage trash frequently gets a pass while flawed but ambitious cinema like this gets knocked and taken for granted).
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Post by thomasjerome on Aug 16, 2020 11:52:14 GMT
Wow, imperialism is bad? What an eye-opening experience. The movie just doesn't come alive and feels heavy-handed if anything. With no depth or whatsoever, it feels cold, dull and unengaging. Production design and costumes were nice and Rylance is seriously good. His performance could have been the only element that kept me watching. Pattinson does nothing worth to note (and I'm still yet to be truly impressed by him despite the internet hype) and Depp's hammy performance made me feel like I'm watching Fantastic Beasts or something.
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Pasquale
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Post by Pasquale on Oct 24, 2020 22:45:09 GMT
(a shame we live in times where Netflix teenage trash frequently gets a pass while flawed but ambitious cinema like this gets knocked and taken for granted). lol.
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