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I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS
Director: Radu Jude Cast: Ioana Iacob, Alex Bogdan, Alexandru Dabija MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:20 Release Date: 7/19/19 (limited); 7/26/19 (wider); 8/2/19 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 25, 2019 "We don't have the right to be subtle," says theatrical director Mariana, who's also actress Ioana Iacob, because she introduces herself as such and as playing this character at the start of the film. The character might as well be a stand-in for writer/director Radu Jude, who's making the argument that his film doesn't have any reason to be subtle. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians doesn't plays games. It is exactly what it is: an indictment of Romania's past during the Holocaust and the current population's frightening dismissal of what Mariana—and, hence, Jude—calls "symbolic guilt" in favor of hollow, jingoistic pride. The framing device for this thesis is a public theatrical production, which Mariana intends to stage in front of the Royal Palace in Bucharest. The story will show how Ion Antonescu, the country's dictator during the war who aligned the nation with the Axis powers, personally ordered the murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Romani people. Mariana has the evidence—letters, orders, photographs, film from Antonescu's trial (where he was convicted and sentenced to death), official historical accounts—to prove this, and much of the film, showing her staging and rehearsing the upcoming show, presents that proof to us. There's the distressing flip side to her case, personified by Movila (Alexandru Dabija), a representative of the city council who tries to get Mariana to tone down her accusations against the country's former leader. This gives us two lengthy debates about the ideas of guilt, bigotry, censorship, public opinion, and an uncomfortable game of comparing one atrocity to another, in order to deflect from the horror of the first (Movila argues that Mariana should be more upset about the Soviet Union than what happened in their own country). Up to a point, that's the extent of the film (There's also a mostly distracting subplot about Mariana's affair with a married man), but Jude is meticulous in giving voice to both sides of this issue and in showcasing the evidence of the truth, making one side clearly invalid from as a matter of logical argument. The climax of I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, though, presents the show in front of what seems to be an actual audience. Their reaction is the most damning evidence on display. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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