David Walsh' wsws-review of Ciro Guerro's Waiting for the Barbarians (IMDb rating 5.8) is right to argue that this is an anti-imperialist movie and not the right wing sorry ass judgment of the Times "Barbarians instead aspires to hook an anti-colonialist mentality to an old-school Orientalist narrative style." The Times must be confused about Colonel Joll (Depp) being a colonialist while he in fact he serves Empire. (I wonder if colonel and colonial are etymologically related, probably) The last take suggests the coming of the 'Barbarians'. It is no hard guess who has so much horses. Only Empire.
It certainly did outrage me, this jerk Depp has enough talent for that, and strenghted my hatred of men who wear uniforms with insignia without scruples. If only a more gentle barbarian age arrived after Americanism...That is a conclusion Walsh does not make, but primitivists do. Barbarians is not quiet pro-nomad (a peacefull nomadic primitivism) because in one take, the nomads take the silver from the Magistrate who returns the tortured woman and the nomads promised not take his horses in return. In another take a dead soldier of Empire tied on a horse with an open skull returns to the fortress as a declaration of war from the nomads. Colonel Jolly Joll accomplished this state of war in only one week after his arrival in the fortress at empire's border. (There is no history at the border claims Joll) In the end he returns wounded in his carriage after a probable attack by the nomads. This is missing in the film. Walsh aligns himself with the Magistrate and the Law. So there are three angles from which you can approach this movie: Empire, Law and Nomads. I prefer the latter.

--R.O.