“Waiting for the Barbarians” is an American drama movie that is based on some historical events. The movie first premiered in the year 2019 at Venice Film Festival and was then released in August 2020. The movie was directed by Ciro Guerra, and it was his debut film in the English film industry. The movie was based on a novel from 1980 with the same name, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” which was written by J.M.Coetzee. By 2021 the movie had made around $754k worldwide. Though the movie was not a hit, the acting of the actors was loved by many. In total, the movie was rated as in the average category by the viewers.
For this article, we will focus on the review. But before that, for those of you who have not yet seen the movie, here is all you need to know about the movie; from the cast to the actual overview of the story. Along with that, as a bonus, I will share if the movie is even worth watching or not.
The Cast of the movie
In the movie, there is a total of four main characters, along with all the supportive roles. Here are all of them. In the movie, Mark Rylance played the role of The Magistrate. Born in the 1960s, Mark Rylance is a British actor and theatre director. Thanks to his on-stage mind-blowing performances, he has won some really special awards like The Academy Awards, Laurence Olivier Awards, and many more. The role of Colonel Joll was played by Johnny Depp. Another tremendous actor most popular for his role is Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie “Pirates of The Caribbean.”
Along with those tremendous actors, the role of the cruel Officer Mandel was played by Robert Pattinson, and Gana Bayarsaikhan as “The Girl”. Other supportive roles were played by Greta Scacchi, David Dencik, Sam Reid, Harry Melling, and Bill Milner.
Here is an overview of the story
The story lies in a life of a Magistrate who takes care of an outpost in a desert of an unnamed empire. His duty was to take care of the outpost and keep peace in the nomad tribes living there. The Magistrate was actually a kind heart person, and with his conscientious administration, he kept the peace there with a few problems. But all of a sudden, his life changes when Colonel Joll visits the Empire’s desert border. He came there to investigate barbarians who were currently in prison at that time. His intention was to get some important information about the barbarians’ raiding plans. So the movie is basically about how all the main characters are interacting with each other and also how much miserable the situation of the empire he is working for. And the Magistrate’s main aim is to change the situation of the empire.
Waiting for the Barbarians Review
The movie “Waiting for the Barbarians” shows a fascinating and interesting scenery of war, enemies, and how people used to get tortured back before. The director tried his best to give a real-life structure to what is written in the novel of J.M.Coetzee. All the lead characters played their role very well. Through the movie, you will get to experience what is actually going on inside the head of these characters. You will also have an idea of how democracy and dictatorship work. But the problem with the movie is when it comes to adapting to what the book actually shared, the movie failed to do so. To be honest, the movie is not really interesting, and I feel it is completely boring. It felt like a movie that had so much to say but could not be translated very well.
In my eyes, you can give the movie a go. Though all the scenes are not implemented very well compared to the actual novel, all the details, and acting that were played in the movie are really very good. On top of that, as said earlier, if you want to get an overview of how democracy worked before, then you can give this movie a go.
