Romanian

BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN: completely different than any movie you’ve seen

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Photo caption: Katia Pascariu in BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

The Romanian absurdist comedy Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is unlike anything feature film you’ve ever seen. For one thing, it begins with a three-and-a-half minute amateur sex video. The couple is having sex that is playful, enthusiastic and highly verbal. The sex is not simulated.

The couple turns out to be married. The wife is Emi (Katia Pascariu), a teacher of Romanian history at an upscale private school in Bucharest. Unfortunately, her husband takes their laptop to a tech shop for service and the sex video appears on the Internet – and goes viral within her school’s community.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is divided into three chapters, each approximately 30 minutes. In the first, Emi leaves their crowded apartment and walks, COVID-masked, through Bucharest to her boss’ apartment and then to school, stopping to receive a series of phone calls with ever worsening news about the video.

Beginning with the chaos of daily family life crammed in tight quarters, and spilling out through the city, this is deadpan comedy at its best. Writer-dirctor Radu Jude’s camera wryly points out the mixed martial arts studio Super Kombat Romania next door to a more aspirational Caffe Le Strada.

Jude depicts Bucharest street life as boisterous and earthy, with everyone unleashing torrents of foul invective at the slightest annoyance.  I’m an aficionado of vulgarities, and the best in this film comes from the driver of a vehicle whom Emi points out is illegally parked.

Part 2 takes a break from Emi’s story – it’s a series of brief vignettes highlighting the most ridiculous and outrageous excesses of Romanian history, including Nazi collaboration and the Ceaușescu communist dictatorship. Most of the vignettes are funny, and most are wickedly pointed. Some are just refreshingly silly, like a socially-distanced folk dance and the funniest elevator doors I’ve ever seen. 

In part 3, the school hosts a meeting of the parents to discuss the sex video – and whether Emi should keep her job. Of course, this is mortifying for Emi.

[MILD SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH] The parents insist on playing the sex video at the meeting, so Emi is subjected to watching them watch her have sex – with a running commentary from the audience. Of course, if the video is offensive, then the parents are offending new viewers or re-offending those who have already seen it. But this is not about reason – it is about slut shaming.

Context completely escapes the parents. Emi’s consensual sex in her home with her husband is entirely her right; she didn’t publish the video, and she is the victim of its publication. Nevertheless, the parents plunge ahead into a witch trial that would have made colonial Salem proud, worsened by a dose of jawdropping antisemitism. That everyone is masked for the pandemic adds another layer of ridiculousness.

Katia Pascariu in BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Through it all, Emi steadfastly tries to salvage her dignity and impose some measure of intellectual consistency on others. She is the last stand of rationality. As Emi, Katia Pascariu is on camera in every scene of the first and third segments of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, and her performance is superb. Pascariu’s Emi is a strong and confident woman thrust into a most humiliating and desperate situation, who keeps her poise…until even she cannot any longer.

What does it all amount to? Writer-director Radu Jude is zeroing in on human foibles, some specific to Romanian society and some universal. Jude has an unsparing, clear-eyed view of human nature, and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn nails sexism and misogyny in particular.

Jude’s previous features were the much acclaimed Aferim! (which I didn’t like) and I Do Not Care If We Go Down in HIstory as Barbarians. He was the assistant director of Cristi Pulu’s high brow art house hit The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.

Beyond its title, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is unusual for its hardcore prologue and the mid-movie diversion from the plot. Those aspects may not be enjoyed by everyone; I also recognize that not everybody dials into deadpan absurdism as I do. Nevertheless, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is continuously engaging and very funny.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is Romania’s submission for the Best Intentional Picture Oscar, and I believe that it will be nominated. It appears on at least 20 critic’s top ten lists, including #1 on J. Hoberman’s and #2 on A.O. Scott’s. I streamed Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn on Drafthouse On Demand; it is also streaming on AppleTV.

THE WHISTLERS: walking a tightrope of treachery

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Catrinel Marlon and Vlad Ivanov in THE WHISTLERS

In the absorbing crime thriller The Whistlers, Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) is a shady Romanian cop who is lured into a dangerous plot by the rapturously sexy Gilda (Catrinel Marlon) and the promise of a fortune. A lethal Spanish mafia is planning a Perfect Crime to recover the loot stolen by Gilda and her Romanian partner, Zsolt. Only Zslot knows where the treasure is, and he’s been jailed by Cristi’s colleagues. To beat the omnipresent surveillance of Romanian state security, Cristi is sent to La Gomera, an island in the Spanish Canary Islands to learn a whistling language.

A whistling language? Indeed, residents of La Gomera can communicate by whistling in code. The language is called Silbo Gomera and it was already being used in ancient Roman times. The whistling can be heard for up to two miles, which allows the locals to communicate across the impassable ravines on the mountainous island.

The plan to spring Zsolt depends on Cristi learning Silbo Gomera and then implementing an intricate plan in which nothing can go wrong. Even if the plan goes right, Cristi and Gilda run the very real risk of being killed by the pitiless Spanish mafia or by the corrupt and unaccountable Romanian cops. Cristi and Gilda are walking a tightrope of treachery.

Vlad Ivanov in THE WHISTLERS

The Whistlers is written and directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, who is a master of the deadpan. Two of his earlier films became art house hits in the US, 12:08 East of Bucharest and Police, Adjective. Both of those films explored fundamental corruption in Romanian society as a legacy of the communist era..

Cristi is played by Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov. Ivanov is best known for the Romanian masterpiece 4 Days, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, in which he played one of cinema’s most repellent characters – Mr. Bebe, the sexual harassing abortionist. American audiences have also seen Ivanov’s performances in Police, Adjective and Snowpiercer.

Ivanov excels in playing Everyman piñatas, which serves him well in The Whistlers. Ivanov delivered a tour de force in the 2019 Cinequest film Hier, as a man more and more consumed by puzzles, and increasingly perplexed, dogged, battered and exhausted.

For The Whistlers to work, Catrinel Marlon must make Gilda quick-thinking and gutsy, and she pulls it off. She is very good, as is Rodica Lazar as Cristi’s coldly ruthless boss Magda.

This is a Romanian film with dialogue in Romanian, English, Spanish and, of course, whistling. The Whistlers, a top notch crime thriller, can be streamed from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

MONSTERS.: when it’s time to move on

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MONSTERS.

In the ambitious and innovative Monsters., writer-director Marius Olteanu unspools his story one chapter at a time. First we follow Dana (Judith State), a morose woman whose behavior is bewildering her cab driver – and the audience. In the second chapter, we meet two men, one of them Arthur (Christian Popa), and try to figure out the connection to the first chapter. The third and final chapter weaves the stories together into a romantic tragedy. (And, yes, there is a period in the film’s title.)

[MILD SPOILER: The movie is about a couple in love who want to have a conventional marriage, but whose relationship cannot succeed in that form.]

Monsters. is Olteanu’s feature film debut. Stylistically, Monsters. is typical of Romanian Slow Cinema, long takes and all, and it depicts a 24-hour story in under two hours.

Olteanu is an ambitious and fearless filmmaker. The beginning and most of Monsters. is in an unfamiliar, vertical aspect ratio; right away, we know that we’re watching something different. And, just when we’ve settled in, Olteanu CHANGES the aspect ratio to make points about the content. This dynamic aspect ratio and the film’s structure are self-conscious, but it’s clear that Oltenau is aspirational and innovative. I’m looking forward to what he has in store for us next.

Both lead actors are very good. State is up to the challenge of playing a sad character who is always aggrieved without becoming tiresome. Serban Pavlu is especially excellent as an off-puttingly meticulous Grindr hookup.

Frameline hosts the North American premiere of Monsters..

Cinequest: THAT TRIP WE TOOK WITH DAD

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THAT TRIP WE TOOK WITH DAD
THAT TRIP WE TOOK WITH DAD

The German dramedy That Trip We Took with Dad reminds the American audience that Iron Curtain-style communism was NOT monolithic.  The story takes place during a significant historical moment, when the Prague Spring was slammed shut by the Soviet invasion in August, 1968.  Two Romanian brothers are taking their dad to a surgical procedure, which necessitates a road trip from Romania through Hungary, Czechoslovakia and into East Germany.

The primary point of view is from one of the brothers, a young doctor.   Feeling responsibility beyond his years, the  doctor is very, very practical.  He will do what it takes to protect his father and brother, even if it means the distasteful task of informing to the secret police.

His younger brother is a naive artist who keeps criticizing OTHER Eastern European commie regimes in the knuckle-headed belief that the Romanian commies will leave him alone.  The father is a once-true believer who now blames communism for the death of his wife.

Since the brother and the father are likely to blurt out the most provocative thing at any moment, each border crossing becomes dreadfully tense for the doctor – and for the audience.  As with any Odd Couple (or Odd Trio) road trip, there is also humor.

That Trip We Took with Dad is a social and political satire of Iron Curtain communist societies.  Our doctor also encounters some West German lefties who naively reject Western capitalism for its exploitation and inequality, ignoring or apologizing or minimizing the lack of free expression behind the Iron Curtain.

The family in the movie is Romanian of German ethnicity, and the story stems from writer-director Anca Miruna Lazarescu’s own family. Her introduction of the film for Cinequest is on this post just below the trailer.

Cinequest: ANISHOARA

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ANISHOARA
ANISHOARA

Anishoara is an art movie of breathtaking visual quality. It also has a remarkable sense of time and place and . That place is the rural back country of Moldovia, a small, impoverished country wedged between Romania and Ukraine. That time is now, although it could just as easily be in a past century.

The visual artistry comes from writer-director Ana Felicia Scutelnicu, a Moldovan director who studied in Germany. I saw her first 61-minute feature Panihide, at the 2013 Cinequest. In both Panihida and Anishoara, Scutelnicu demonstrates a fine eye both for landscape and human observation. However, her pace is sloooooow. Scutelnicu is so gifted as a visual director, I’d really like to see a movie that she directs from someone else’s screenplay.

Anishoara begins with an Icarus-like folk parable about a girl’s unsuccessful quest to love the sun deity. We then see that tale reflected in a girl’s daily life over a year, as she sequentially deflects three suitors. Anishoara’s star is the non-professional actress Anishoara Morari, who was about 12-years-old in Panihide and about 16 in Anishoara. Morari is beautiful, with an unusual directness of gaze, and exudes striking alertnesss.

Not everyone is going to be able to stay with a movie this (ahem) unhurried, but the whole thing is great to look at. I’m thinking of a nighttime scene where we see Anishoara sitting on the ground in her cobalt dress before the camera pans to the landscape across a valley and the dramatic sky above. Every so often there’s a shot like that makes you gasp.

Cinequest: WHY ME?

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WHY ME?
WHY ME?

In the paranoid Romanian drama Why Me?, an able young prosecutor is assigned to bring down a corrupt kingpin, but is frustrated at every turn.  Is the system fixed?  This is Romania, so you tell me.  This is based on real events.  However, there are much more entertaining examples of paranoid, cynical mysteries – and much, much better examples of Romanian cinema.

Cinequest: CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM

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CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM
CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM

During the Communist regime of the repugnant Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romanians could only experience two hours of television per day and all of that was boring Ceaușescu propaganda.  They were starving for culture, of any type and any quality, and a ring of smugglers responded to the demand with bootleg VHS tapes of American movies.  The rewarding documentary Chuck Norris Vs. Communism tells this story.

Now this isn’t about high cinema from America and the rest of the world inspiring the current crop of Romanian auteurs – although that did happen. This is about ordinary Romanians feasting on even the crappiest American movies, especially the never-ending cascade of action movies (Chuck Norris movies were among the favorites).

The authorities, usually obsessively repressive, turned a blind eye top the VHS smuggling because they totally missed the subversive impact the movies that were not overtly political.  But the ordinary Romanians saw abundantly stocked American supermarkets and measured that against their own deprivation.

One guy organized this VHS smuggling ring.  Amazingly, one woman narrated a Romanian voiceover for all these movies – hundreds of them.  It was a shady business for him and a moonlighting gig for her – but now they are cultural heroes in Romania.  We meet these two briefly in Chuck Norris Vs. Communism.  And we hear the testimony of Romanians touched by cinema – even trashy cinema.

What is banal in some cultures can have a significant impact on others.  Chuck Norris Vs. Communism makes that point engagingly, in a story you won’t see anywhere else.  Plays Cinequest on March 4, 6 and 12.

Beyond the Hills: a bleak tragedy by a masterful filmmaker

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The two lead characters in Beyond the Hills grew up together in a Romanian orphanage where they were subjected to privation and worse – and where they became lifelong soulmates.  They aged out of the orphanage, and, now 24, Alina has been working menial jobs in Germany while Voichita has joined a local monastery.  The monastery is a small rural compound with a rigidly dogmatic provincial priest, a compassionate but simple mother superior and a dozen nuns who run the gamut from devout to superstitious.

Alina craves Voichita’s companionship and viisits the monastery to convince Voichita to leave and join her in Germany.  Voichita resists, and tries to get Alina to join the religious order.  They’re both emotionally damaged from childhood experiences.  There’s a strong bond between the two, and each is unable to let the other go.  But each is strong willed and stubborn.

Then Alina suffers a psychotic breakdown.  Now, since the worst place to treat such a condition would be a community of religious fanatics that is intentionally devoid of modernity, bad things happen. The priest and nuns are not monsters, but ill-equipped to avoid making a series of monstrous choices.  We can only watch as the story moves unrelentingly to its awful conclusion. Sadly, the story is based on actual events at a Moldavian monastery a decade ago.

Beyond the Hills is compelling, in an oft excruciating and uncomfortable way.  But those who commit to its 2 1/2 hours will see some remarkable film artistry from its real star – director Christian Mungiu.  Munghiu’s thriller 4 Months, Three Weeks, 2 Days won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival (and made #3 on my Best Movies of 2007).   Beyond the Hills won Canne’s screenwriting award.

Munghiu fills Beyond the Hills will one dramatic shot after another.  Early in the film, we see Voichita and Alina hike up a hillside in the Romanian countryside (see photo at top); when they reach the top, the camera swings behind them, and we see the monastery on the next rise.  At the climax, the camera stays fixed on a crowd of characters (see photo below); the action and dialogue is between the two men in the foreground, but our attention is on the reactions of Voichita in the background.  The length and patience of the shot allow our attention to settle on Voichita, and her eyes tell us what she has concluded.  It’s an absolutely gripping moment.

Beyond the Hills is a tough movie by a major film artist.