Projected in a continuous loop, the 30-minute video Shakuntala Du Bois (2012) epitomizes My Barbarian’s idiosyncratic mixed-media language. The video, based on the bucolic screenplay written by Alexandro Segade, narrates the semi-allegorical antics of the antihero Shakuntala Du Bois, the personification of Trueness in a world that no longer seems to care. In the foolish cosmos created by My Barbarian, you can count five seasons; life’s pace is lazy and voluptuous. Everything is influenced by subtle classical references coupled with a wild taste for Hollywood rhinestones. The main characters, identified with ironic and suggestive names such as Mahabharata Bernarda Alba, Mercutio Iglesias or Cassandra Wasserstein, do not speak, but rather recount, declare and express themselves through a pristine tone of voice with a latent touch of sweetness, even when their words suggest crisis, suffering and pain.

Shakuntala’s eccentric daily routine does not have a beginning or an end. She repeats her hopeless destiny throughout eternity, like a contemporary working-poor Sisyphus.

Awakened each morning in her bedroom by the visit of the mighty and ambiguous Sun God, she constantly complains: “Every day feels like another rape.” Thus does she invoke the intrinsic pain of an entire generation: ours.

Harrowing sweetness is a characteristic of My Barbarian’s artwork. Campy, the show evokes an anachronistic Lumpenproletariat hero’s visual Manifesto: totally useless and pathetic, yet exquisitely idealistic and poetic.