Barbarians teaser reaction
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There are a lot of movie trailers I’m pretty excited about right now: No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s final Bond outing, which looks great and has some genuinely beautiful cinematography just in the trailer; Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh’s second sumptuous and classically-styled entry in his Hercule Poirot adaptations; Dune, which despite—a very strong despite—Timothée Chalamet, looks utterly fantastic; and Mank, which doesn’t actually have a trailer yet, but it’s a David Fincher film about the production of Citizen Kane so I’m already on board.
But I’ve been too tired and busy this semester to post about any of those. What’s gotten me excited enough to get me off my duff and write a blog post is a completely unexpected teaser for a Netflix limited series, Barbarians.
Barbarians, based on the very stingy teaser trailer dropped by Netflix a few days ago, retells one of the most famous stories from ancient Rome—the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Fought in what is now northwestern Germany in AD 9, the battle destroyed three Roman legions in a trap sprung by an ostensible ally, the Roman-educated Germanic chieftain Arminius. The Romans’ German allies under Arminius lured the army, which was commanded by an inept general named Varus, into a militarily indefensible position and then turned on them. Ambushed while strung out in column through the dense, marshy forest, the Romans were picked apart and annihilated in detail. The emperor Augustus, only five years from his death at the age of 75, supposedly cried in anguish for Varus to “Give me back my legions!”
In keeping with my usual format for trailer reactions, a few notes and observations:
The teaser certainly focuses on the battle aspect. IMDb tells me this is a six-episode series, so Netflix is definitely trying to sell us on the action first. I’ll be curious to see how much more of Arminius’s story the series tells. Let’s hope for a proper trailer soon.
The Romans’ weapons and armor look surprisingly good although, again, this teaser doesn’t give us much. Most of the infantry are shown in what modern historians call the lorica segmentata, remains of which have indeed been found on the battlefield. The Kalkriese face mask, found on the battlefield by modern archaeologists and conjectured to be a ceremonial Roman cavalry mask, makes an appearance. I geeked out.
But then there are some Germans with horns on their helmets. If we owed nineteenth century opera costumers royalties on this hooey they’d have some very, very rich descendants.
Not a fan of the Uruk-hai facepaint. This may be based on an offhand observation about one Germanic group in Tacitus’s book Germania (see below), but that’s describing a tribe that lived in modern-day Poland, not the region the battle actually took place in. The wideshot of Arminius and his serried ranks of Germanic warriors standing at the edge of the forest looks like a shot from the beginning of Gladiator, which is not a good thing.
Lots of inexplicable fire in the rather abstract battle shots we get in the trailer. We’ll see. Let’s just hope they don’t include any fire arrows.
Even worse is the inclusion of a standard-issue Hollywood warrior chick (cf. Knightley, Keira in Arthur, King). This is one of the great sword-and-sandal action movie clichés of the last thirty years—second only to fire arrows. Germanic women did play an important role in battle, but it wasn’t as kickass fourth wave feminists covered in mud. It’s tiresome and silly. Stop it.
Lots of fur, rough fabrics, unkempt hair, and subdued colors for the Germans. Let’s hope this is just due to the selection of clips for the teaser, most of which come from the battle itself. Otherwise, given the other items above, this is looking like another ancient movie full of mass-produced Movie Barbarians™. But I hope not. My ancestors may have run around naked, sacrificed people, and worshiped trees, but they did like bright colors and personal grooming.
Much, much better, and definitely working to the movie’s advantage, is the atmosphere. The gloom and murk of the forest are exactly as described by the Romans, and the miserable weather that always played a role in Rome’s campaigns in Germany looks to be on full, glorious display here.
Related: I love what we see of the cinematography here. Again—gloom, atmosphere, shallow depth of field. Bring it on.
So far I haven’t mentioned that this is a German movie, in German—and Latin. As far as I can tell the German is modern Hochdeutsch, though. Still great to have a polyglot movie to reflect this aspect of the ancient world.
That this is a German production is interesting in itself, and makes me wonder how precisely they will handle the Arminius story. Arminius has been used as a heroic symbol of German nationalism since the 19th century, and heroic nationalism is not something Germans do nowadays. This teaser has, as another site has put it, “serious Gladiator vibes.” I wonder if they will tread carefully in this regard, trying to avoid potentially stirring up old nationalistic images of the barbarian warlord, or attack into the ambush, so to speak, telling the story as straightforwardly action-packed and heroic without drawing direct attention to the Pan-German uses to which the story has been put. We’ll see, but this is a meta level of historical interest that could make Barbarians extra rewarding.
So there’s definitely some Hollywood stuff in here, even glimpsed in snatches in this very short teaser, but there’s also a lot of great-looking material. If the authenticity of the setting, costumes, and reconstruction of the battle are top notch and, very importantly, crafted to support a well-written—and, hopefully, accurate—story dramatized through good performances, it could more than outweigh the nonsense.
Barbarians has potential. Here’s hoping.
More if you’re interested
In the meantime—while we wait for a proper trailer and for the show itself—a few reading and viewing recommendations:
Wikipedia actually has a good list of primary and other ancient sources on the battle. Among the most detailed are the accounts of Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and Paterculus. Tacitus also wrote about the Germans more generally in Germania, sometimes regarded as the first ethnographic study. These are good reading. As I tell my students, ancient historians are still good to read because, unlike the authors of modern textbooks, they were obliged to be interesting.
The Battle that Stopped Rome, by Peter S. Wells is one of the authoritative books on the subject, with comprehensive but lucid explanations of the archaeological evidence that helped historians find the original battlefield and a good explanation of the significance of Arminius’s victory in Roman history.
The story of the location of the battlefield after almost 2,000 years is a fascinating one in itself. Here’s a short version of the story from Smithsonian.
Osprey Publishing has two excellent books on the subject: Teutoburg Forest, AD 9, by Michael McNalley, and Roman Soldier vs. Germanic Warrior: 1st Century AD, by Lindsay Powell, part of Osprey’s Combat series that offers detailed comparisons of the two belligerent sides and a series of illustrative case studies. Both books feature gorgeous, lavishly detailed paintings by Peter Dennis, along with the trademark maps, photographs, and informative sidebars of Osprey guides.
For a blast from the past, you can also watch the History Channel’s “Decisive Battles” episode on the Teutoburg Forest, recreated using the Rome: Total War gaming engine, on YouTube here.
