In the culture-clash comedy “Meet the Barbarians,” actress-director Julie Delpy lays bare a number of Western hypocrisies. The film follows several residents of the troubled French commune of Paimpont who vote to welcome a handful of Ukrainian refugees, only to be caught off guard when a Syrian family shows up instead. The ensuing reaction ranges from awkwardness to hostility, which Delpy captures by applying a documentary lens to the urban fabric and its Arab guests. The result is a film that, while never quite reaching the dramatic heights it aspires to, is incredibly funny.
The film opens with an energy reminiscent of “The Office,” as bumbling mayor Sébastien Lejeune (Jean-Charles Clichet) regales a TV crew with his plan to host a Ukrainian family. The city council overwhelmingly votes in favor of the project. Even Hervé Riou (Laurent Lafitte), the town’s scowling plumber, relents after a little prodding from his peers. Several local interviews touch on the issue of the Russian invasion and the widespread acceptance of Ukrainians, despite the fears and economic reservations that people like Hervé may harbor. However, these doubts resurface when the town learns of the administrative change.
The television camera sequences in “Meet the Barbarians” are distinguished from the rest of the film by newsreel chyrons and a smaller frame. However, even the narrative segments that are not mockumentaries exhibit a similar visual approach, reminiscent of Michael Winterbottom’s “The Trip” series, in which the film’s subjects still have some acting, even when they are not being interviewed. Lejeune, for example, is deeply concerned about the optics of welcoming refugees and wants to ensure the most welcoming atmosphere possible, if only to maintain his political cachet. When he learns that Ukrainians are being welcomed en masse throughout Europe, he seems disappointed that Paimpont will not accept his own members of this precious commodity. Deply’s character, the progressive schoolteacher Joëlle, helps organize the refugees’ arrival but is equally prone to awkwardly displaying her outward acceptance.
The aforementioned Syrian family, the Fayads, are presented in a mostly unremarkable manner, though that is partly Deply’s point. Architect father Marwan (Ziad Bakri), his graphic designer wife Louna (Dalia Naous), her grumpy father Hassan (Farès Helou), their school-age children Dina (Ninar) and Waël (Adam), and their doctor aunt Alma (Rita Hayek) are simply too exhausted from their time in the refugee camps (where they learned French) to care what everyone in Paimpont thinks of them. However, they do their best to put down roots and integrate into the community, which means taking odd jobs here and there, since their degrees are either not valid in France or have been literally destroyed, as was their house in Damascus.
While we are offered hints at the Fayads’ inner lives and desires, “Meet the Barbarians” unfortunately deploys them in the manner of the city’s politicians, first and foremost as a political entity to make a larger point. But that point is a powerful and introspective one, revealing two main factions that define much of the Western discourse on the subject of refugees. There are people like Joëlle and her perpetually drunk best friend Anne (Sandrine Kiberlain), whose well-meaning liberal politics are always tinged with Orientalism. And then there are people like Hervé and Anne’s husband, Philippe (Mathieu Demy), a convenience store owner, whose approach to all things Muslim and Arab is much more wary and hostile.
Perhaps the film’s greatest strength is that Delpy presents these apparent opposites as two sides of the same coin, their respective approaches stemming from the same source of prejudice and misunderstanding, even if they manifest themselves differently. More serious contemporary films have tackled the painful aspects of the refugee experience, such as Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak” and Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” (the latter even hints at the same double standard Delpy targets, whereby white refugees are better received than their Middle Eastern counterparts), but as a comedy, “Meet the Barbarians” can afford to be more precise in its approach.
While the Fayads face challenges—notably a greater hurdle to empathy, since they usually have to prove their traumas in some way—their story is thankfully no longer a life-or-death affair. This allows the film to focus on the minutiae and tedious red tape of their experience, as well as the minor tensions that arise when a perceived unknown is thrust into the small-town spotlight. It’s a bright, sunny, and pristine story, despite its dark corners. Yet Delpy never loses sight of the bigger picture, offering constant hints that the world continues to be harsh for Muslim refugees, even outside of this hilarious story.
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