Radu Jude's DRACULA (2025)

Radu Jude's all over the place take on Dracula has some amazing things in it but  wraps the good things with bad  and is wildly too long and rambling to hold together.

The film feels like Jude had all these ideas about Dracula and Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Stoker's character but he didn't know what to do with them so he through them all together. At the same time he had all these ideas on other things like AI so he put them them in there too. Thoughts appear and then disappear. We remember the things that punch through and shine and forget the rest. My over riding feeling coming out on the far end is that the film has moments but nothing hangs together.

Full disclosure, I am not a Jude fan. I find his film's tough slogs, his BAD LUCK BANGING and DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD were in desperate need of an editor, much like his DRACULA. He seems to think more is more even when it's garbage. Quite honestly I am convinced that he is scamming the cineastes who adore him by bullshitting them into thinking his works mean something. This is the result of dealing with way too many artists who scammed their patrons for big bucks.

That said, for all the messiness and crap it contains DRACULA is probably Jude's most interesting film, though I never need to see it agin.

TWST (2024) NYFF 2024

This is a repost of the review that ran when the film World Premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month

TWST is a profound head scratcher.  Andrei Ujică's found footage film looks at the Beatles arrival in New York City and the surrounding area up to their performance at Shea Stadium and it is oddly lifeless. How the great filmmaker could make a film this dull boggles the mind, more so when it it playing two of the biggest film festivals in the world.

The film is a mix of documentary footage mixed with some fictional characters (inserted via drawings). It's a film aiming to to recreate a moment in time and make it alive for today by mixing by mixing old footage and the words of some people who were there and some new material. 

Unfortunately it just sort of lies there.

The problem with the film is that out side of the voice over and the inserted drawings a great deal of this material is material that we've either seen or seen a version of. Specifically if you are a Beatles fan you've seen this before. This is especially true  if you are from New York.  While the film stitches a great deal of the footage of the arrival of the group to NYC and the insanity and press conference together it's nothing particularly exciting. Its a lot of people screaming and the Beatles cracking wise. Why are we being shown this? I'm not certain.

Once the press conference is over the film switches gears and we get sequences in the city, at Jones Beach and else where, and while we get some voice overs that attempt to stitch the material together into a faux narrative, nothing really sticks. There is little excitement. Worse some of the constructed conversations feel fake. While I can blame Ujica's not being from New York in the 60's for some of the clunkiness of the dialog, the truth is the words feel artificial and not anything would say. For example the girl's discussing shooting of the World's Fair Pavilions footage is structured not so much to be the actual talk of two young women, but rather to explain what we are seeing.

None of it is bad as such, but rather it's incredibly dull...and worse it never seems to give us a reason as to why we are seeing this. Honestly I have no clue, none, as to why we are seeing any of this.

Personally out side of getting to hear the radio broadcasts of WMCA, WABC and others I really could have cared less.

A boring bust.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023)

Radu Jude (Last at NYFF with BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN) is a back...and if you liked his earlier films you'll possibly like this and if you didn't stay away.

The film follows a girl named Angela as she goes through her day as a production assistant. She is scouting locations, filming people who were hurt on the job for an upcoming film, and doing her errands as she sits in traffic and drives around. At the same time Jude intercuts life of this Angela with that of another girl named Angela from a 1983 communist film traveling in the same locations.

How you react to Jude's sense of humor and his love of long takes where nothing happens will determine if you like this film or not. If they click great, if not you'll get up and leave.

His sense of humor is such that he has Angela talk about how in America you can buy all the guns you want at a grocery store and that if buy a bazooka they'll send a machine gun to Ukraine. He starts off with a poke in the eye about how the world sees America, which he pushes too far and neuters the jab (it ends up a nerf ball and not a stick).  A lot of the satire is like that, obvious points pushed too far. It might have worked but the writing isn't as clever as it thinks it is.

The other problem is Jude loves the long take. Some directors can make it work, but I've never found that Jude has been able to pull it off. In his previous film BAD LUCK BANGING he had one of his characters wandering across a city for no real reason for the better part of an hour . While there is nothing as long as that in this film there are numerous sequences where I don't know why they are running so long. The sequences could have been trimmed.  (There is no reason this needs to be almost 3 hours long)

To be honest as with Jude's other films, if he trimmed it down it would be the winner it could of been  and not the bore it actually is.

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (2023) NYFF 2023

Radu Jude (Last at NYFF with BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN) is a back...and if you liked his earlier films you'll possibly like this and if you didn't stay away.

The film follows a girl named Angela as she goes through her day as a production assistant. She is scouting locations, filming people who were hurt on the job for an upcoming film, and doing her errands as she sits in traffic and drives around. At the same time Jude intercuts life of this Angela with that of another girl named Angela from a 1983 communist film traveling in the same locations.

How you react to Jude's sense of humor and his love of long takes where nothing happens will determine if you like this film or not. If they click great, if not you'll get up and leave.

His sense of humor is such that he has Angela talk about how in America you can buy all the guns you want at a grocery store and that if buy a bazooka they'll send a machine gun to Ukraine. He starts off with a poke in the eye about how the world sees America, which he pushes too far and neuters the jab (it ends up a nerf ball and not a stick).  A lot of the satire is like that, obvious points pushed too far. It might have worked but the writing isn't as clever as it thinks it is.

The other problem is Jude loves the long take. Some directors can make it work, but I've never found that Jude has been able to pull it off. In his previous film BAD LUCK BANGING he had one of his characters wandering across a city for no real reason for the better part of an hour for no real purpose. While there is nothing as long as that in this film there are numerous sequences where I don't know why they are running so long. The sequences could have been trimmed.  (There is no reason the needs to be almost 3 hours long)

To be honest as with Jude's other films, if he trimmed it down it would be the winner it could of been  and not the bore it actually is.

RMN opens Friday

Cristian Mungiu's R.M.N. is a damning look at racism and the fear of the other that pervades the world.

The plot of the film has a man named Matthias returning to his home after punching his boss through a door when the boss called him a gypsy.  In the small village he really can't find work, there are no well paying jobs and most people are fleeing to elsewhere in Europe for the same well paying jobs. The lack of decent pay is a problem since the local bakery can't find workers so they are bringing in people from Bangladesh. As the villagers, many of them actually transplants from Hungary, begin to threaten the dark skinned new comers Matthias finds his life unspooling.

Mangiu's film is a killer. This is a look at the world as it is as people flail about in fear of the "invaders" coming into their towns unaware that they are seen the same way elsewhere in the world. My jaw was hanging open through much of the film since a lot of this plays as if its actually a documentary.

The feeling of this being a documentary was  strongest in the film's centerpiece a 17 minute single take town meeting where the layers of civility are peeled away and the darkness in everyone's heart is laid bare. It's one of the truly great moments (or 17 minutes) in the cinema of 2022.  It's based on a video of an actual town meeting from the area where the film is set. The real video shook things up and forced resignations. Here the sequence left the audience dazed and broken as we see just how badly we are screwed.

After the film there were long long conversations. So many people wanted to talk to Cristian Mungiu he said he would go on instagram to talk to anyone with questions. Hubert Vigilla and I  were so rocked we ended up going to a late dinner because we had to talk about the film. A week on I'm still pondering the film and what it's revelations say about the world.

What a shattering film.

Highly recommended- especially in this "us vs them" world we live in.

RMN (2022) Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2023

Cristian Mungiu's R.M.N. is a damning look at racism and the fear of the other that pervades the world.

The plot of the film has a man named Matthias returning to his home after punching his boss through a door when the boss called him a gypsy.  In the small village he really can't find work, there are no well paying jobs and most people are fleeing to elsewhere in Europe for the same well paying jobs. The lack of decent pay is a problem since the local bakery can't find workers so they are bringing in people from Bangladesh. As the villagers, many of them actually transplants from Hungary, begin to threaten the dark skinned new comers Matthias finds his life unspooling.

Mangiu's film is a killer. This is a look at the world as it is as people flail about in fear of the "invaders" coming into their towns unaware that they are seen the same way elsewhere in the world. My jaw was hanging open through much of the film since a lot of this plays as if its actually a documentary.

The feeling of this being a documentary was  strongest in the film's centerpiece a 17 minute single take town meeting where the layers of civility are peeled away and the darkness in everyone's heart is laid bare. It's one of the truly great moments (or 17 minutes) in the cinema of 2022.  It's based on a video of an actual town meeting from the area where the film is set. The real video shook things up and forced resignations. Here the sequence left the audience dazed and broken as we see just how badly we are screwed.

After the film there were long long conversations. So many people wanted to talk to Cristian Mungiu he said he would go on instagram to talk to anyone with questions. Hubert Vigilla and I  were so rocked we ended up going to a late dinner because we had to talk about the film. A week on I'm still pondering the film and what it's revelations say about the world.

What a shattering film.

Highly recommended- especially in this us vs them world we live in.

RMN (2022) NYFF 2022

Cristian Mungiu's R.M.N. is a damning look at racism and the fear of the other that pervades the world.

The plot of the film has a man named Matthias returning to his home after punching his boss through a door when the boss called him a gypsy.  In the small village he really can't find work, there are no well paying jobs and most people are fleeing to elsewhere in Europe for the same well paying jobs. The lack of decent pay is a problem since the local bakery can't find workers so they are bringing in people from Bangladesh. As the villagers, many of them actually transplants from Hungary, begin to threaten the dark skinned new comers Matthias finds his life unspooling.

Mangiu's film is a killer. This is a look at the world as it is as people flail about in fear of the "invaders" coming into their towns unaware that they are seen the same way elsewhere in the world. My jaw was hanging open through much of the film since a lot of this plays as if its actually a documentary.

The feeling of this being a documentary was  strongest in the film's centerpiece a 17 minute single take town meeting where the layers of civility are peeled away and the darkness in everyone's heart is laid bare. It's one of the truly great moments (or 17 minutes) in the cinema of 2022.  It's based on a video of an actual town meeting from the area where the film is set. The real video shook things up and forced resignations. Here the sequence left the audience dazed and broken as we see just how badly we are screwed.

After the film there were long long conversations. So many people wanted to talk to Cristian Mungiu he said he would go on instagram to talk to anyone with questions. Hubert Vigilla and I  were so rocked we ended up going to a late dinner because we had to talk about the film. A week on I'm still pondering the film and what it's revelations say about the world.

What a shattering film.

Highly recommended- especially in this us vs them world we live in.

ÎNTREGALDE (2021) opens tomorrow

ÎNTREGALDE is getting some bad write ups about  it's plot. I don't blame the festivals, I blame the producers who don't know how to really describe the film and are selling it as something it's not a thriller. The film is in actuality the story of some people dropping off food packages to needy people in rural Romania. Things happen and things get tense, but the film never crosses into anything that you think of as a thriller.

I mention this up front because I read the description of the film from the New York Film Festival and thought "Oh boy this is gonna be good". I arranged to get a screener and was set to go. Then I talked to some people who were at the NYFF and they told me the film is good but they felt their expectations based on the write up wrecked their enjoyment.

For me this is a very good film that is its own things. It tickles several genres but never is close enough to actually fall into anything other than a drama. I like the film enough I wish I had seen it on a big screen because it's a beautifully shot film.

If you want a really good film that is its own thing I recommend ÎNTREGALDE

ÎNTREGALDE (2021) NYFF 2021

ÎNTREGALDE is getting some bad write ups about  it's plot. I don't blame the festivals, I blame the producers who don't know how to really describe the film and are selling it as something it's not a thriller. The film is in actuality the story of some people dropping off food packages to needy people in rural Romania. Things happen and tings get tense, but the film never crosses into anything that you think of as a thriller.

I mention this up front because I read the description of the film from the New York Film Festival and thought "Oh boy this is gonna be good". I arranged to get a screener and was set to go. Then I talked to some people who were at the NYFF and they told me the film is good but they felt their expectations based on the writ up wrecked their enjoyment.

For me this is a very good film that is its own things. It tickles several genres but never is close enough to actually fall into anything other than a drama. I like the film enough I wish I had seen it on a big screen because it's a beautifully shot film.

If you want a really good film that is its own thing I recommend ÎNTREGALDE

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021) NYFF 2021

 

Painfully obvious social commentary follows a teacher riding the wake of having a sex video uploaded to the internet and the trouble is cases in her life.

Completely boring film could easily be trimmed  to a fraction of its running time as sequences go on endlessly. For example the a large chunk of the first hour of the film is the teacher walking  while the camera kind of follows her and occasionally drifts off to look at things that have no connection to anything. There is no reason for it since it doesn't move anything forward.

The film is an utterly useless exercise in social commentary about things such as hypocrisy that are much too easy targets. Repeatedly I just shook my head and wondered why they weren't being daring?

I guess the daring went  out the window when the they decided to open the film with graphic sex. Yes we see the sex tape and its suitably ridiculous. While I have nothing against graphic sex in films I do require a reason to have it there. Why do we need to see the  penetration and the oral sex? No clue. In films like THEY CALL HER ONE EYE graphic sex is there for effect. Here there is no reason other than the fact that the film so uncommunicative at times that if we didn't see it we wouldn't know what got everyone's panties in a bunch. Honestly in a better written film you wouldn't have had to show it, and turned it to making it into being a big nothing.

Honestly this is a film that will only get rented or bought by people wanting graphic sex but won't log into a porn site and need to fool themselves the film is art. It's also a film that will only get programmed by people who think this is cutting edge and daring. Worse the film is so useless that the only thing anyone will remember is the sex, if they remember the film at all.

This is one of the dumbest and most over rated films I've seen at a New York Film Festival in thirty years of going.

Two Lottery Tickets (2016) hits theaters-real and virtual- Friday

For many people the notion of a Romanian comedy is alien. This is because most people distributors and film festivals gravitate toward the deadly serious films from Romania, you know the ones that are full of sturm and drang and make you want to play in traffic. Seriously the cineastes who program the festivals need to at least borrow a sense of humor because there are funny films from Romania.

A good case in point is TWO LOTTERY TICKETS which has three loveable losers winning several million Euros in a lottery only to have to go on a mad hunt in order to find the wining ticket. Insanity results.

I know what you're saying we've been here before, and you are absolutely right. We have seen the basic plot used in cinema going all the way back to the silent days. You would think that the plot has been used up, and I would tend to agree. I mean I only half heartedly watched the film because I was dead certain this was not going to be anything I hadn't seen before...

...but the characters and the setting in Eastern Europe won me over and it wasn't long before I was laughing at our heroes dead pan and not so dead pan adventures. Basically despite my better judgement I found myself laughing at what was going on one screen.

And since this is a Romanian film there is a bit of social commentary as we get a good look at the way people who aren't so well off get by and how they have to struggle just to buy a drink.

I do have to apologize because I really don't have a great deal to say about the film. I enjoyed it a great deal - to the point that I stopped taking notes and just let the film wash over me, Anytime that happens the film gets a couple extra points and thats what happened here.

Recommended

In brief: Collective (2019) DOC NYC 2020

 One of the current expected Oscar contenders COLLECTIVE concerns the aftermath of the the Collectiv night club fire in Romania. Not only were there no fire exits in the building to get people out. 27 people died that night and 180 were injured. The hospital burn wards being filled. In the weeks that followed another 37 people died in hospital. However they didn't die from their wounds but the infections they got from being in the hospital. The newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor began poking around and they discovered a healthcare system so corrupt it brought down the national government.

Belt in boys and girls this is  one hell of a ride. I paused the film 20 minutes in to Tweet that with over an hour and a half to go the film had reached the point where most other films would end. That's a statement that tells you just how bad things were/are and how much digging had to be done. This is a story that keeps going and going to the very end. I just stared at the screen slack jawed. 

As has been pointed out this is a story of not only a broken system but of entrenched corruption. We hear stories of kickbacks, bribes, cronyism and all sorts of malfeasance that will make your head spin. It is a dire warning to everyone everywhere of what happens when government officials get too close to the private sector as the maker of hospital supplies paid off hospital officials to make sure they used their tainted products. Its a chilling account that mirrors some of what the Trump administration has been trying to do during its term in office. 

I was and still am horrified. I should discuss it more but even with reading reviews on the film I was nt prepared for what I saw. See it for yourself and be punched in gut.

An absolute must see.

COLLECTIVE is currently playing on various VOD platforms after finishing it's festival run

Malmkrog (2020) NYFF 2020

I've spent a lot of time trying to sort out what to say about MALMKROG.  This is a three and a half hour historical drama where five members of the upper crust talk about god, war and philosophy. When my brother walked by when I was done with the film he asked me what I was thinking and I said mostly that I wish I had seen the film at an actual NYFF press screening with other people because I wanted to hear the whole audience snoring.

Static and incredibly dry, the film is a series of long discussions shot very often in long takes. The camera barely moves. The cast arranged in tableaus. It looks like a frozen stage play written by the driest textbook writer in the world.

I was bored.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the arguments and the discussions, this is in my bread and butter, but they are so painfully written that it's like listening to volumes of a history of philosophy arguing. this isn't people this is ideas. There is no life anywhere in this. 

And I know the hyper intellectual nature of it all is part of the idea- but not for three and a half hours. That's intolerable. You want something like MY DINNER WITH ANDRE or, closer to this film, MINDWALK. Bothe of those films discussed ideas with passion and humanity.

This is great discussions dully told.

Recommended only for those needing a long sound sleep.

Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema U.S. Tour Now Available to Stream Online

New York, May 26, 2020 — Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema is proud to present a 15- film selection from the expansive retrospective, The Romanians: 30 Years of Cinema Revolution, now available to stream nationally in the U.S.. The retrospective launched to great acclaim in November at New York’s Film Forum, and is the largest series dedicated to Romanian film presented in the U.S. to date. A selection of the program was scheduled to tour in more than seven U.S. cities, beginning at the University of California at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), but was put on hold due to theater closures from the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, in response to the unprecedented public health crisis, Making Waves is working with cultural partners across the U.S. to make the films available online to a national audience.

The streaming edition of the retrospective encompasses 15 cinematic works including seminal, award-winning films such as Luxury Hotel by Dan Pița, winner of Venice Film Festival Silver Lion; The Death of Mr Lăzărescu by Cristi Puiu, winner of Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival; Videograms of a Revolution by Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujică; Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard: Best Actress-winner The Way I Spent the End of the World by Cătălin Mitulescu; CPH:DOX Amnesty Award-winner Crulic: The Path to Beyond by Anca Damian; Cannes Film Festival Golden Camera-winner Stuff and Dough by Cristi Puiu and more.

This cinematic event marks the first time many of these titles are available online, allowing these groundbreaking films to be seen by a wider audience. Select titles will also screen in Virtual Cinema format in collaboration with leading arthouse cinemas including New York’s Film Forum and the Lightbox Film Center in Philadelphia.

Spanning the 30 years since the revolution of 1989 and the fall of communism, this comprehensive series presents titles from the recent history of Romanian cinema. Naturally, history is the running theme in most films. In the 1990s, directors who found themselves freed from the tyranny of censorship rushed out in the open to tell stories from the recent past. In the following two decades, younger directors went back in time on their own terms and came up with a fresh perspective on the communist era. Even when they chronicled the present with incisive slices of contemporary life, the dark shadows of the past still permeated their stories like familiar ghosts. Then there is the enigma of the revolution itself, which continues to beg for closure. And, despite its apparent diversity, this vast retrospective works best as a history lesson served in the most entertaining form: movies.

Below is the full list of titles available to stream throughout 2020:

Aferim!, Radu Jude, 2015
Crulic: The Path to Beyond, Anca Damian, 2011
Dogs, Bogdan Mirică, 2016, available in the U.S. June 12
Domestic, Adrian Sitaru, 2012
Do Not Lean Out the Window, Nae Caranfil, 1993, available in the U.S. May 29
Luxury Hotel, Dan Pița, 1992, available in the U.S. June 26
Niki and Flo, Lucian Pintilie, 2003
Of Snails and Men, Tudor Giurgiu, 2012
Pororoca, Constantin Popescu, 2017
Stuff and Dough, Cristi Puiu, 2001, available in the U.S. June 5
The Death of Mr Lăzărescu, Cristi Puiu, 2005
The Great Communist Bank Robbery, Alexandru Solomon, 2004
The State of Things, Stere Gulea, 1995, available in the U.S. June 19
The Way I Spent the End of the World, Cătălin Mitulescu, 2006
Videograms of a Revolution, Harun Farocki & Andrei Ujică, 1992, available in the U.S. May 29

For access to streaming and program details visit
https://makingwaves.filmetc.org/category/now_streaming/

Corina Suteu, festival president and co-curator of Making Waves states, “We believe that now more than ever, audiences deserve access to all forms of art and cinema to put our world into perspective and to reflect on the beauty and fragility of the human condition. These Romanian films culled from the thirty year period since the fall of communism mark a cycle of creative freedom in Romanian cinema. This series is truly unique, offering a most comprehensive and compelling survey of the brilliance and intensity of talent of various generations.This retrospective ensures that their creative voices will be heard in the wider world.”

Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, states, “Thirty years after the revolution in Romania these films remain as meaningful as ever as the shadows of totalitarianism and corruption are increasingly evident everywhere and protesters take to the streets around the globe.”

The Romanians: 30 Years of Cinema Revolution is organized by the Making Waves Film Festival and Cinema Projects. Produced by Corina Șuteu and Oana Radu, and curated by Mihai Chirilov, David Schwartz (Cinema Projects) and Corina Șuteu. Produced and presented with the support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Dacin Sara, Romanian Filmmakers Union, the Romanian National Film Center, Blue Heron Foundation, Galeria Plan B, Mobius Gallery, Gentica Foundation, and numerous individual donors.

About the Films

Lemonade (2018) Tribeca 2018

Mara, a Romanian mother hoping to get her green card, has her life turned upside down as her son comes to join her in America and her quest goes into the homestretch.

Absolutely not my cup of tea film was loved by many others in the critic trenches. This dark  drama was much too contrived for my tastes as almost everything that could go wrong does. I began to tick off all the things that could possibly go wrong and sure enough many of them did...often with plot turns that do not make logical sense (the bus dropping Mara miles from the government offices) and leave massive plot threads (the CPS call).

The film also goes to great length to be uncomfortable and inflict maximum pain upon our heroine. For no really good reason we watch sexual violence against her. Despite the directors feelings we don't need it.

Well made I never really cared.

A personal Tribeca miss.

THE DEAD NATION (2017) NYJFF 2018

Radu Jude's documentary of life in Romania from 1937 to 1944 is going to either thrill or annoy the audience. Made up of photographs by photographer Costica Acsitne over which period music, speeches and excerpts from the diary of Dr  Emil Dorian the film seeks to reveal what life was life in the country on the small scale and the large.

Mirroring the work of filmmakers like Chris Marker who used a similar technique, DEAD NATION is at times a heady mix of words and images. However on a personal level the film never truly clicked with me. The problem was that I could not make the words connect with the image except fleetingly wit the result that this is a film I like more than I love. On the other hand I have spoke with a couple of colleagues who found the film rapturous since they connected with the film and what it is trying to do.

Despite my lack of emotional connection this is still a powerful film. The film's portrait of the antisemitism running through the country is often chilling because of the narrations you are there at tat moment description. Additionally when the word and image come together it is a powerful portrait of a country and a time and place most of us are not familiar with.

Very much worth a look.

Be My Cat: A Film For Anne (2015)

Odd ball found footage film is either going to thrill you or bore you to tears. While I like the idea of the film I found it became tedious rather quickly

Nominally edited from 25 hours of footage found at a murder site the film is the footage shot by a seemingly sweet but not all there young man who wants to make a movie with Anne Hathaway. Falling in love with her after seeing DARK KNIGHT RISES he proceeds to shoot some footage in the form of a video letter to convince her to go to Romania and make the film. In order to show her what the film will look like he hires actresses to act out some of the scenes but it all goes horribly wrong as its clear he has no idea what he's doing.

Less terrifying than really uncomfortable this is just like watching a clueless person dream way beyond their reach. In some ways it's incredibly sad. There is no fear, there is no terror, there is only watching our hero, played by writer director and jack of all trades Adrian Tofei do things that prove how clueless he is (the character not the director).

To be honest on a technical level Tofei has made an interesting film. I like the idea of story, and I like how he filmed it. The trouble is the execution really isn't that compelling.  We know it's going to end badly. Tofei's character is less scary monster than misguided nut job so I never fully feared him. I completely get what he was going for but I don't think he succeeded, or if he did it got lost in a film that goes on way longer than it should have.

Its not bad, but its not scary and so its not much of anything.

Two Lottery Tickets (2016) Making Waves 2016

For many people the notion of a Romanian comedy is alien. This is because most people distributors and film festivals gravitate toward the deadly serious films from Romania, you know the ones that are full of sturm and drang and make you want to play in traffic. Seriously the cineastes who program the festivals need to at least borrow a sense of humor because there are funny films from Romania.

A good case in point is TWO LOTTERY TICKETS which has three loveable losers winning several million Euros in a lottery only to have to go on a mad hunt in order to find the wining ticket. Insanity results.

I know what you're saying we've been here before, and you are absolutely right. We have seen the basic plot used in cinema going all the way back to the silent days. You would think that the plot has been used up, and I would tend to agree. I mean I only half heartedly watched the film because I was dead certain this was not going to be anything I hadn't seen before...

...but the characters and the setting in Eastern Europe won me over and it wasn't long before I was laughing at our heroes dead pan and not so dead pan adventures. Basically despite my better judgement I found myself laughing at what was going on one screen.

And since this is a Romanian film there is a bit of social commentary as we get a good look at the way people who aren't so well off get by and how they have to struggle just to buy a drink.

I do have to apologize because I really don't have a great deal to say about the film. I enjoyed it a great deal - to the point that I stopped taking notes and just let the film wash over me, Anytime that happens the film gets a couple extra points and thats what happened here.

The film plays Saturday night at the Making Waves festival in Pleasantville New York and is recommended. For more information and tickets go here.

Nathanael Hood on Graduation (2016) New York Film Festival 2016

Dr. Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni) isn't a good man, but he is a decent one. In its best moments, Cristian Mungiu’s new film Graduation glimpses beyond his stoic, stern facade to see the decent man beneath. About two-thirds of the way through, there’s a scene where he drives home late at night. Apropos of nothing, he pulls over to the side of the road, walks into the woods, and breaks down sobbing. It’s his most overt demonstration of emotion in the entire film. As such, it helps keep Graduation from collapsing under the weight of its own solemnity.

At first it seems like the film will be a post-modern thriller à la Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005): Dr. Aldea’s family is menaced and attacked by an unseen, offscreen tormentor. But what begins as petty vandalism of their house climaxes with their daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) being sexually assaulted right outside her high school. These moments are designed primarily to shock and jar the audience as much as the onscreen characters—spasms of unexpected violence interrupt extended long-takes, whether it’s a rock through a window or a dog running in front of a car. Eliza’s assault may take place offscreen, but we learn about it at the same time Dr. Aldea does. It too comes completely out of the blue.

But after the first half-hour, the film settles into the mode which dominates the rest of its runtime, that of a heady morality play. It turns out Eliza was attacked the day before the start of her high school exams. Having been all but guaranteed a full scholarship to a prestigious British university to study psychology if she gets high marks, Dr. Aldea sets about his small town of Cluj, Romania to arrange some “insurance” in case Eliza is too shaken up to perform properly. Deals are struck and favors are called in as he plummets into the very heart of the institutionalized post-Ceaușescu corruption he so desperately wants to free his daughter from.

Much like in the causal universe of guilt and corruption invoked by Haneke, the world of Graduation seems to be punishing Dr. Aldea for past misdeeds. But they are never fully explained, never fully illuminated. There are hints here and there and even a curious red herring involving a CCTV photograph which may or may not implicate Eliza’s slacker boyfriend in the attacks. But it all leads to an anti-climax where the ambiguity that propelled Caché gets traded for a simple, clearly-defined ending.

After attending the film’s screening at the New York Film Festival, I was shocked to hear one of my fellow critics describe it as hypnotizing. But frankly, I never felt hypnotized nor all that compelled. It flows like a river of dried concrete, its inability to choose between traditional drama and post-modern narrative machinations preventing me from becoming fully invested in its story and characters. There are certainly films out there capable of doing both. But Graduation isn’t one of them.

5/10

GRADUATION plays the 11th and 12th at the New York Film Festival.  For tickets and more information go here

HOTEL DALLAS (2016) Dallas International Film Festival

HOTEL DALLAS is a head trip film. Nominally a documentary the film spins off in all sorts of directions to make an endlessly compelling film if for no other reason than it seems untethered to reality.

Beginning with life in the bad old days of Romania where Dallas was the only Western TV show allowed, the film spins off in odd directions as children reenact portions of Dallas, the Dallas ranch is built in Romania and a filmmaker makes a film with Patrick Duffy as a man who dies in Texas only to wake up in Romania in the Dallas mansion. I’m forgetting the found footage and the musical numbers.

Yea it’s out there.

It’s so out there that I stopped taking notes and just stared at the screen wondering what in the hell I had gotten myself into. To be honest I have no idea how to describe the film and stole bits of the official description to put the synopsis together. If I was forced to actually tell you what happens under pain of death I’d be dead. I can’t describe it rationally. This is one of those films where a bunch of things happen and they kind of fit together.

It’s a head trip and I enjoyed the hell out of it because for however long the film was on I was outide of myself.

This is not a film for all audiences but for those wanting to wrestle with another way of looking at the world this is a must see.

For tickets and more information go here