Meet the Barbarians

Julie Delpy has a brilliant sense of humour for such a politically minded auteur.

With this film, and despite her recent public gaffes, she paints an incredibly defiant portrait of the current European anti-refugee sentiment, all of it’s facets and arguments, and refuted each with a careful, hopeful hand.

To call it a white saviour narrative would be to ignore the context in which this film lives. It’s contending with a hostile Europe with looming fascistic tendencies. The film, then, feels like its compassion is a mission - and the comedy the sugar for the medicine.

It had the potential to be a very heavy film, instead it is almost comically direct and broadly accurate, which I found refreshing. Maybe don’t watch if you already ‘get it’ — or do, it may warm your heart to visit a world where compassion reigns, and the hypocrisy of our situation is acknowledged, for a moment, in bright and beautiful provincial France.