Article by Emidio Sciamanna
Translation by Giuditta Portaro
What is racism for you? Behind this simple question posed to elementary school’s children, centuries of discrimination and prejudices can hide, reiterated by the fear of the unknown, of what is unfamiliar or what, due to ignorance and dullness, one fears to know. However, the pure and innocent gaze of children tends to observe the world differently from adults, turning a frequently disappointing reality into the most imaginative and idyllic of fairy tales. It is precisely with the classic “once upon a time” that Julie Deply’s Les Barbares begins: a play, a ruthless farce around which twirl characters bordering on the surreal, grotesque masks of contemporary society.
The lives of the picturesque inhabitants of Paimpont, a green and lush town in Brittany, change radically when the town council decides to welcome a family of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war. Unfortunately, according to Mayor Sébastien, securing refugees from the East is a challenging task, as “Ukrainians are in great demand on the European refugee market”. The general complacency that floods the festive village turns into partial disappointment when it is discovered that the family ready to move in is actually from Syria.
Whether through the camera of a mobile phone or through the footage of a local TV crew, Julie Delpy – both director and actress – offers different perspectives, continuously overturning characters’ point of view, providing multiple points of reflection on the respectability and purely superficial conventions of our time.
On one hand, the division into five acts – each identified by a different painting – punctuates the theatrically of the performance and emphasises the caricatured vicissitudes of the inhabitants, while on the other hand, the definition of a parodic comedy contributes to mocking Western bigotry and hypocrisy with biting effrontery, managing not to lose effectiveness despite the fairy-tale happy ending. “Get rid of the barbarians!” is the phrase that not only metaphorically scars the new life of the family that has just arrived in town, but there are very few doubts as to who the real barbarians of the story are.