Page 23 - WFTB

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

J.M. Coetzee’s “Waiting for the Barbarians” is one of the great novels of the 20th century, a tale that
seems plucked from time immemorial, that feels like it has always been here, and yet also speaks firmly
to today, to our current world. It is a story that has the rare capacity of being both timeless and timely.

This adaptation should feel both epic and intimate, as it deals with great themes of humanity, such as the
legacy of colonialism and the eternal return of history, as well as themes that affect only the deepest areas
of each individual soul, such as the process of aging out of the world that you have grown accustomed to,
and how love can be the window to escape the prison of our own comfort.

It is a film that allows the space for a great group of actors to come in and own roles that are completely,
uniquely human, and also for an unknown landscape to be discovered and imagined. Audiences should
feel that they have been transported to a place that seems remote yet familiar, a time that feels distant as
well as eerily factual and close.

The film should have the epic breath of David Lean and the intimate sanctity of Ozu. Its pace should be
pensive as well as assertive; its sounds and music comforting and then dissonant. Its images should be
alive and colourful, yet austere and meditative. It is a film that speaks to the brain as well as the heart, a
reverie as much as a lament.

-Ciro Guerra