Waiting for the Barbarians

Embrace of the Serpent director Ciro Guerra makes his English-language debut with this adaptation of JM Coetzee's novel, set in an unnamed colonial outpost at an indeterminate time. Mark Rylance is introduced as the gently soulful Magistrate, overseer of a fortress where the flag is dutifully raised and lowered, and possibly fictitious "barbarians" are held at bay. The arrival of Johnny Depp's brutish colonel puts paid to any equilibrium by capturing and torturing a group of indigenous tribespeople, after which Rylance faces incarceration by his psychotic deputy (Robert Pattinson) on trumped-up charges. Unflinchingly and sadistically violent, Guerra's film packs all the widescreen beauty of David Lean's epics - impeccably photographed by veteran Chris Menges (The Killing Fields, The Mission) - but with unbearable sadism at its core, as order breaks inexorably down.