I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians

Behind this long and complicated title is hidden a razor-sharp and highly entertaining film from one of Europe’s foremost filmmakers.

A young Romanian theatre director has been charged with producing a show with a historical theme to be performed at the main square of a small town. The people who are paying for it might have envisioned something light and entertaining, but the director herself would rather focus on the Jewish persecution in Romania during WWII. When on top of that she insists that the Romanians themselves – not the German Nazis – were the worst anti-Semites, she is met with a wave of protests, including from her own cast. Why can’t the past be the past, what is the good of all this self-flagellation?

Director Radu Jude pays great attention to this central question, which has also been raised in the question of the Jewish persecution in Norway. When the day of the play arrives in the film, the conflict has reached breaking point. In the final part of the film, it leaves fiction behind and steps into current reality in a way that will send chills down your spine.

…Barbarians is an intellectually honing and incredibly entertaining film. Do not miss it!