Maxance Vincent
In its initial proposition, Julie Delpy’s latest directorial effort, Meet the Barbarians, may look like a straightforward comedy. And one could be perceived to think this way. The movie adopts a carefree, lighthearted tone for most of its runtime as the small town of Paimpont prepares to welcome a family of Ukrainian refugees fleeing their country to escape the ongoing war.
Its opening scene showcases how disconnected these well-meaning but pitifully clueless citizens are in attempting to welcome them into their village. The mayor (Jean-Charles Clichet) tries to look and sound like French president Emmanuel Macron, while one of the town’s schoolteachers, Joëlle (played by Delpy), hangs a frame of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in what will be their apartment. Even better, a news crew is filming all of this for Brittany to see, which leads to the mayor openly stating ignorant stuff like “Ukrainians are in high demand in the refugee market.”
However, on the eve of the family’s arrival, they learn that they will instead welcome Syrian refugees, to the dismay of city councilor Hervé Riou (Laurent Lafitte), who reluctantly voted for the Ukrainians but disapproves the integration of Syrians within Paimpont for reasons that have to do with racism. Of course, with such a story like this, Delpy could’ve quickly fallen into the traps of Hollywood race relation comedies like the Oscar-winning Green Book, which thinks it’s saying something groundbreaking or meaningful but is instead doing the exact opposite.
Surely enough, there are several scenes involving Lafitte’s racist Riou that imbue severe Green Book vibes from the movie, including an over-the-top pregnancy sequence (though hilarious, it doesn’t top We Live in Time’s department store pregnancy) that changes his perception of the Syrians he voluntarily ignored and demeaned since they arrived in town. It takes him a while to accept them as equals, but when he does, he realizes that they are just human beings who have a right to live their life freed from the shackles of war and torture. This moment felt increasingly telegraphed from the start of the picture, which prompted the audience member sitting next to me at its Cinemania Festival screening (with Delpy in attendance) to say, “This is ridiculous.”
It certainly is part of the reason why Meet the Barbarians may not be one of Delpy’s finest directorial efforts from a screenwriting perspective. In those sections, she and co-screenwriters Nicolas Slomka and Matthieu Rumani attempt to cram in far too many plot threads to show how far Riou’s hatred of this community is, starting with a petition to kick them out of the town, associating himself with White Nationalists (who crash the family’s welcoming party), and manipulating some of the inhabitants who like the presence of the family to be on his side.
It feels far too artificial for the audience to buy into his character, making his sudden (and predictable) acceptance less impactful than Delpy hopes. Still, it culminates in one hell of a pregnancy sequence, so there’s that. Plus, Lafitte is a good enough actor to sell Riou’s pure, unfettered hatred that cuts far deeper than simply not accepting newcomers into the quaint town for irrational fears. That’s how he initially convinces people to join his side, but as he associates with dangerous people, we know deep down that he’s not a good person, nor will his epiphany feel naturally enlightening.
However, whenever Delpy cuts to the family or whenever Joëlle attempts to help them settle in, the movie begins to transcend the tropes it teeters with regarding Lafitte’s character. At face value, Delpy’s satire may feel mean-spirited or ham-fisted. Some jokes received wild reactions from the audience, not particularly because they were funny but because they tapped into something people didn’t expect to see. But when audiences begin to see the deeper meaning behind Delpy’s provocations, one sees how effective it is in capturing a society that has looked the other way since its inception and is now forced to reckon with what they have been enabling for so long.
Their misconceptions of Syria (initially, Ukraine) are funny at first because of how purely clueless they are. The vérité camerawork from cinematographer Georges Lechaptois adds to this authenticity that Delpy has always captured with a stark eye, either in her comedies or, more recently, in her harrowing drama My Zoe. But this is the first time (that I’ve seen) Delpy truly play with formats. The television channel cameras depict Paimpont citizens inside a pretty perfect façade, while the traditional camerawork sees them in a completely different light. The contrast is fairly evident, even more so when Delpy confronts the protagonists with footage of the ongoing war so they can finally realize what’s going on.
The (white) male leaders of Riou, or Philippe Poudoulec (Mathieu Demy), sit the meeting out as if they don’t want to learn the truth to reckon with their racist demeanors while the others listen patiently and give room to the Fayad family, who first tells them of the torture they underwent before showing what they had to live through for so long. Delpy never shows an ounce of the footage for a long time, instead lingering on the terrorized faces of the citizens who finally realize that it isn’t about them and their preconceptions but about the people who desperately need help and support. Their eyes are widened in pure shock as the agonizing screams of Alma (Rita Hayek) are heard in the video until Delpy cuts to an explosion before shifting to an establishing shot of the town.
This juxtaposition shows just how our collective society does not want to face reality or at least be conscious of the atrocities perpetrated around the world. And this cut feels incredibly deliberate, acting as a gutsy political gesture that few filmmakers seem willing to do. Consider this: as soon as Delpy shows us a frame (not even a frame, a millisecond)of what the citizens are watching, the movie looks the other way. It’s definitely not a coincidence, and it’s part of what makes the back half of Meet the Barbarians so strong.
Initially, the Fayads are labeled as such when they arrive in town, with graffiti saying “Go home, barbarians!” painted on their apartment door. But as the movie progresses, we realize that they are not so, but the citizens of Paimpont, who, by purposefully avoiding the atrocities committed in Ukraine, Syria, and other parts of the world, have inadvertently enabled xenophobia and bigotry to take hold within a community built on colonization (as Delpy’s character eventually states).
Some citizens do not want to wrestle with this inextricable fact, but Joëlle is ready to help the Fayads and others who need care and, more importantly, a home. Perhaps the ending could be a little undercooked, but the call to action is heard loud and clear. This is Delpy at her most political, angry, and exasperated at a society heading to a point of no return. It’s evidently illustrated in Meet the Barbarians, but even moreso during the Q&A in which she not only expressed her rightful indignancy at the re-election of Donald J. Trump (and what this ultimately means for all of us), but in the rise of far-right movement happening in the rest of the world.
What are we doing? Delpy doesn’t have the answers, and neither do we. But in numbing ourselves to violence and ignoring acts of barbarity (ergo, the film’s title) committed every day because our privileged lives are so far removed from where they occur, we’ve let this collective rot grow in a now irreparable direction that makes it way more difficult to heal than it might have. But let’s not kid ourselves. This world we’re living is becoming much sicker, and I’m afraid the cure may never arrive. If that’s a hard pill to swallow, then you likely don’t want to watch Meet the Barbarians because you don’t want to get this ingrained in your system. The movie will certainly remind you of this inextricable fact and ensure you’ll never be able to look the other way again.
SCORE: ★★★
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