There is no history on the border
The Empire is, above all, the magistrate himself, an elderly civil servant, a calm and melancholy man, who was entrusted with the management of a small town on the border with the territory inhabited by nomadic tribes – the so-called barbarians. Once there was just an oasis in the desert and the surrounding lands were used primitively as pastures. But with the advent of the Empire, irrigation facilities were built, the land turned into fields, a small fortress was built, which we mainly see in the film. The nomads were replaced by peasants, townspeople, servants of the Empire.
When the construction was completed, the time was different for the magistrate. This year was not much different from the past. From time to time barbarians came to the city for the purpose of trade or other needs. And then we went back to the mountains. Like the tides. Like an endless sea washing this lonely stone lighthouse in the desert. The magistrate began to study the writings of nomads on tablets, which could be interpreted in several different ways. Are there several ways to think about your country? Always once in every generation along the border there is an episode of hysteria about the barbarians. This is the consequence of a very careless life. The Magistrate here expressed himself in the barbaric logic of the cyclical, natural time of the change of seasons, years, generations, forgetting that the Empire thinks of the time linear, historical. A long stay on the border made his mind barbaric. “A person grows up to be part of a place.” This statement of the magistrate is a confirmation of the cessation of the Empire and another evidence of his barbaric state of mind, adapting to the surrounding space, not transforming it in a creative way.
The magistrate in the film is clearly identified with the Empire on this separate site. Nothing is built here, only fruits are grown and harvested. So the age of the magistrate does not imply active career building, but the calm collection of fruits in the form of respect from others.
The magistrate used to be very keen on the female sex, but today we don’t see any scene in which he sleeps with a woman. When he washes the feet of a blind girl from the tribe, he falls asleep from fatigue. He washed it several times, but nothing more. And the girl wanted more. So the Empire has nothing to offer the barbarians except a state of “peace.” Offer a girl in love with you “peace” and you get war. In a scene in the desert, the nomad is contemptuous of the magistrate, taking his silver.
What is Colonel Joll? A part of the immune system that has sniffed a sore on the border, but can’t understand that it comes from an Empire that has forgotten its mission, has voluntarily adopted a barbaric way of thinking in the person of a magistrate. Appreciate Joll's contempt for the magistrate in the interrogation scene - it's contempt for the clown and the impotent. Joll and his servants are devoid of creative power – they are simply warriors who alone, without imperial ideas, can never defeat even nomads. And the magistrate's ideas are already dead. Joll came to a town waiting for barbarians. No one could see the barbarian at the head of the city.
7 out of 10
Original
