Uncensored century

>> Lafond delivers a millennial warning in The Barbarian Files

by JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

Jean-Daniel Lafond's video documentary clocks in at less than 90 minutes, but it manages to touch on such diverse topics as humanitarian relief, homelessness, DNA experimentation and the Holocaust.

Part Max the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, part Laurie Anderson, Balthazar (Olivier Perrier) is Lafond's performance-artist alter-ego, narrating and leading us through an accelerated montage of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Balthazar wanders the earth with his pet pig Bibi and does things like bury his TV. Initially, it comes off a little like an early '80s "alternative" music video, but it does start to work. Balthazar's poetical rant is interspersed with the eloquent words of sociologists, activists, reporters and artists--all of whom seem to have a genuine concern for the state of the world, and have a great deal of frightening wisdom to impart.

Among other things, our culture is presented as having become a herd of "picture-holics, drunk on images," and TV has become the image tap of "see-nothing pictures." For instance, the humanitarian relief's packaging of the Third World for TV has eliminated our sense of responsibility by only granting us access to the victims without permitting us a peek at the perpetrators. As even aid becomes exploited as a genocidal political apparatus, Lafond asks how we might get "behind the screen" to really make a difference.

Like many people, Balthazar thought that after WWII, things were going to get better. "What is this barbarism that is so specific to our species?" he asks. We call cruel people "animals," but animals don't commit the kinds of crimes that humans do. Cruelty, he argues, is a sign of human civilization, and the film's central thesis is that modern, industrial barbarity--the barbarity of our economic systems-- has made the 20th century the greatest era of inhumanity in history.

Lafond's mondo-style documentary is packed with brilliant insights and depressing philosophical musings that raise more challenging social issues than Saving Private Ryan and Life Is Beautiful combined. The Barbarian Files should be screened every time Runaway Bride is. They could call it "A Siamese twin double bill"-- if you want Gere and Roberts you also have to sit through a call to arms.

The Barbarian Files opens Friday, October 1 at Ex-Centris. See repertory listings for showtimes