Hedda

Director Nia DaCosta

actress Tessa Thompson

DaCosta and Thompson on the set

DaCosta and her lead cast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HEDDA          B                                                                                                                       USA  (107 mi)  2025  ‘Scope  d: Nia DaCosta

A little chaos is good for the gathering.                                                                                       —film tagline

A queer re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play Hedda Gabler, which deals with the suffocating circumstances that women faced at the time, a woman trapped within a loveless marriage whose scheming has disastrous consequences, delving into the 19th century limitations, the search for meaning, and the destructive nature of boredom and unfulfilled desires.  One of the fathers of modern theater alongside Anton Chekhov and August Strindberg, introducing theatrical realism, Ibsen was profoundly influenced by Freudian psychology, delving into the exploration of human motivations and desires, creating complex, character-driven dramas that outside of Shakespeare make him the second-most frequently performed playwright in the world.  Confounding audiences for well over 100 years with the inscrutability of the character, wanting to be in control of her own destiny, but access is denied at every turn, posing the question, what is freedom, where there’s no real consensus whether she’s a liberated force or a monster.  In recent years, Hedda Gabler has been one of Ibsen’s most frequently produced plays, a deliciously showy role played by a variety of actresses that include Ingrid Bergman in a 1962 British television production, Maggie Smith in London in 1970 (directed by Ingmar Bergman), Claire Bloom in New York in 1971, Glenda Jackson winning an Oscar nomination in Trevor Nunn’s HEDDA (1975), Annette Bening in Los Angeles in 1999, Cate Blanchett in a widely acclaimed 2004 Sydney Theatre Company production, Isabelle Huppert in Paris in 2005, and earlier this year Katie Holmes at The Old Globe in San Diego.  Similar to the caged-bird feeling of Nora in A Doll’s House, this play also deals with a woman trapped by the conventions of marriage, as social constraints prevented women from having the right to make their own choices in life, as that was the exclusive right and privilege of the husband, leaving her having to awkwardly and sometime humiliatingly accept the consequences.  Described by the director as Ibsen’s “complicated women who make choices you don’t agree with,” the play was considered shocking and immoral when it premiered, a daring exploration of power, desire, and a woman’s refusal to be confined, as Hedda defied 19th century gender roles and societal expectations for women, so adding a queer and black element for the character may seem equally as subversive and provocative today.  In a desperate attempt to control her own destiny, Hedda becomes a master manipulator, which is her tragic flaw, much like Shakespeare’s Iago in Othello, discovering the capacity to get what she wants by manipulating others, like a puppetmaster controlling the strings, able to elicit change through illicit means, literally for her own amusement, where a daring lack of subtlety becomes her strong suit.  Rather than confine the setting to a single parlor like the stage play, the film expands the action to a massively sprawling country estate, complete with a lake and labyrinthian garden hedge to heighten the feeling of claustrophobia, where the costume and production design is stellar.  Told in five chapters, while the play has four acts, the film is set in the lush decadence of 1950’s England at the massive, recently purchased home of this newly married couple, Hedda (the unbelievably charismatic Tessa Thompson) and George Tesman (Tom Bateman), which they obviously cannot afford, as it’s well beyond their means, but George is an academic classics scholar with an all but certain university professorship awaiting him, yet he doesn’t exactly send his closeted queer wife’s heart aflutter, as he’s a white, mild-mannered, scholarly, and somewhat dull husband, revealing Hedda’s dissatisfaction with her life, including her disdain for George’s scholarly pursuits and the societal expectations placed upon her.  Thinking a safe, conventional marriage will bring her closer to privilege and respectability, it comes at the expense of her true feelings.  But the heavily mortgaged house that leaves them drowning in debt is for Hedda in an attempt to win her favor, giving her something that he thinks she wants, coming from an aristocratic background, where it’s more of a status symbol, even though they haven’t yet reached any degree of affluence, revealing the conflict between romantic ideals and bourgeois reality.  In the 1950’s, it was exclusively queer men who were routinely rounded up and arrested in England, as being gay was considered a crime until 1967, yet women were completely bypassed and ignored, as if they were invisible, where their sexual preferences simply didn’t exist.

Nia DaCosta worked with Tessa Thompson before in Little Woods (2018), a small independent gem, a story of women navigating life in poor rural America to confront the opioid crisis and pressing issues in women’s health care, while the actress has gone on to star in several commercial blockbusters, breaking ground as cinema’s first openly LGBTQ+ superhero in the Marvel universe, though she also starred in several smaller independent films, like Eugene Ash’s Sylvie's Love (2020) and Rebecca Hall’s 2021 #8 Film of the Year Passing, which are more searingly realistic, while this is a showcase role with a feverishly exaggerated theatricality to it, presenting a protagonist who defies the traditional heroic mold.  Having worked as a production assistant for Steven Soderbergh, Steve McQueen, and Martin Scorsese, DaCosta studied in London for her master’s degree in drama, which is where the idea of making Hedda biracial originated, as she believes it’s important to see “black women behaving badly” onscreen.  Essentially a British costume drama that was actually filmed at Flintham Hall, all taking place in a single evening leading into the dawn, with a vibrant jazz score composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir that does wonders with the flashy style of the opening credits, with its emphasis on drums and percussion, Hildur Guðnadóttir - Stolen Tale - Prepping the Party | Hedda ... YouTube (2:19), where the first thing we notice is Thompson speaking with a British accent, Hedda (2025) 'Where Should I Start' clip |Tessa Thompson ... YouTube (39 seconds), which is a bit startling at first, but it’s also given a classical Mildred Pierce (1945) structure, one of the first important “women’s pictures,” where the entire film is told in a flashback, yet what it really explores is the idea of a woman’s long sought-after independence.  This does the same through Hedda’s stifled character, a sensual free spirit who yearns for freedom but isn’t given the opportunity, so instead she exudes in her status as a sophisticated party girl, someone who is the life of a party, capricious, elegantly dressed, beautiful, and quick on her feet, where she’s the equal of any man, but they have income opportunities that she doesn’t, which leaves her seething in bitterness and scorn, even contempt, where her changing moods reflect the dizzying thought process that can be overwhelming to viewers, using a chameleon-like ability to adapt to the moment, where she’s every emotional state imaginable.  She grew up as the young and beautiful illegitimate daughter of the important General Gabler, where she was paraded around proudly on horseback, now lovingly preserving his collection of guns in a small box that opens only through a small golden key that she always wears around her neck, having a special fondness for shooting them.  Her yearning for beauty is synonymous with freedom, a concept that is at once existential and aesthetic, as the film concerns itself with female aspiration, yet her character is positively infuriating, completely cut off from a life she values, so instead she toys with the lives of others.  None of her friends thought she’d ever get married, as she flirtatiously broadcasts her role as young and unattached, beholden to no one, free from all societal conventions, thoroughly capable of holding her own with anyone, though now it’s clear she’s using her husband’s position to display unimaginable wealth and prestige, throwing a lavish dinner party for the social elite to help secure his position that will be one for the ages.  While George thinks this is all for him, Hedda has other ideas, as we discover that she’s something of an instigator who loves playing cat and mouse games, as we see her move from ecstatic, to sad, to bored, or in the next moment her inquisitiveness suddenly takes shape, as she plots just exactly what she wants to do, underscored by an inventive musical choice, percussion on wood, Vivace – Wood YouTube (1:53), a clever device that reflects the mechanism of her plotting.  Throwing such a lavish and luxurious party is a bit of a fairy tale, especially when the couple was so devastatingly strapped for cash, as the country was still living under post-war food rations (Rationing in the United Kingdom), which remained in effect until 1954, an element of the story that is completely ignored, though it does represent a time when women were being pushed out of the workforce for returning servicemen, a period obsessed with appearances, which is part of the suffocating reality of the times. 

Having been educated in many predominantly white institutions, DaCosta learned fairly quickly how black women are diminished in the eyes of others, understanding that she needed to be uncompromising in her vision.  The work of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen has transcended time thanks to his realistic approach to morality.  Of all Ibsen’s works, Hedda Gabler is the most detached, the most objective, a character-study through and through, where one cannot even call it a satire, exploring themes of power, freedom, and the societal constraints on women during the 19th century, illustrating Hedda’s struggle against her oppressive circumstances, where the tension escalates as she faces the repercussions of her actions, leading to a dramatic conclusion that reflects her desperate need for recognition in a world that limits her choices.  A lush portrait of a modern women who is perfectly capable of compartmentalizing her internal thoughts, keeping them both evasive and elusive, belonging only to her and no one else, continually moving from room to room, from one moment to the next, making quick adjustments, finding new angles, new targets, where she’s an absolute delight in being such an unimaginably detestable character, yet she relishes the role, like something out of MEAN GIRLS (2004), continually confounding, sociopathic even, designed to repel audiences, and not easily understood by viewers, wondering why she does the cruel things she does, but it’s all about the power of manipulation.  Her malignant, self-serving egoism rises up uncontrolled, exposing her quick and subtle intellect, where the lavish spectacle is brilliant in coloring and rich in detail, beautifully shot in ‘Scope by Sean Bobbit (Steve McQueen’s cinematographer), as the entire party becomes a series of incidents which can best be described as accidents waiting to happen.  She hasn’t a single intellectual interest or moral limit, instead she languidly cherishes a petty social ambition that she immediately finds obstructed, as that academic position awaiting her husband suddenly finds a rival in successful author Dr. Eileen Lövborg (Nina Hoss, a gender switch from a male character in the play, who curiously played Hedda in a 2013 stage production), an outwardly lesbian former lover of Hedda’s who has just written a book revealing the hidden truths of human sexuality, with the assistance of her current lover Thea (Imogen Poots), that is expected to be revelatory and resurrect her career trajectory, which hit rock bottom during her time with Hedda, as she was an out-of-control alcoholic.  Hoss also displays an enormous range of emotions, from restraint and passion to sheer desperation.  To the complete dismay of her husband, Hedda has invited Eileen to the party, which is sure to prove interesting, just like her arrival, eyes fixated on Hedda across a ballroom, filmed as if both are floating on air, like co-mingling spirits.  The three of them, Thea, Eileen, and Hedda, are like the Three Witches from Macbeth, only queer, each having to fight to be able to decide what kind of life they want to live.  Accordingly, Eileen likes her chances of obtaining that coveted position, as it would give her prominence and stature, as well as economic freedom.  The film centers around Hedda’s desperate attempts to exert control over her destiny and the lives of her husband and his competitive rival, where it may be more about exacting revenge on the circumstances of a life that has made her a prisoner than it is about protecting her husband’s professional prospects.  Hedda can only think of manipulating Eileen, largely for having economic opportunities that are denied to her, so she wants to balance the playing field and take out her competition, using Thea, who she detests, as her foil for manipulating Eileen into doing what she wants her to do, which is create a scandal that will thoroughly diminish her stature.  To that end she devises a rather Machievellian plot to bring about her ultimate downfall, pressuring her, a disgraced yet recovering alcoholic, to get drunk, hoping to loosen her inhibitions and thoroughly embarrass herself in front of her prospective peer group, Hedda (2025) 'I Don't Drink' clip |Tessa Thompson, Imogen ... YouTube (1:42).  DaCosta invents a library scene that is not in the original play where Eileen cavorts with a room full of men, making them drinks and lighting their cigarettes with theatrical flair as she describes her sexual tales, but what was initially academically titillating suddenly takes a dour turn, leaving her defenses exposed, with the men leering at her like a thoroughly depraved whore.

All of these characters are grasping for power because they want to be in a better place, but suffocating social restrictions prevent that from happening.  Enraged at the box society puts her in, and at herself for being unable to pull her way out, Hedda thrives on impulse control, which gets her into a lot of trouble, always acting on a whim, yet never satisfied with where she finds herself.  The uncomfortable factor recalls Thomas Vinterberg’s THE CELEBRATION (1998), another film depicting an emotional all-consuming party over the course of a weekend.  Throughout the party, Hedda seems to cause mini-scandals by preying on the weakness of others, embellished in a crazy world of hedonism and gossip that borders on the ridiculous at times, Hedda (2025) I'm In Competition With That Woman Clip ... YouTube (56 seconds), while also, at least for brief moments, turning despairingly sexual.  Much like the over-the-top spectacle of the seemingly neverending Hollywood party in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022), or the infamous 45-minute ballroom dance sequence in Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), part of the visual appeal is creating this gorgeously brash spectacle, accentuated by an impressively grandiose all-glass chandelier in an all-glass interior space, so that when it falls, it makes the most dramatic impact, just part of the house of cards that Hedda constructs that will eventually fall, where the chandelier is the perfect embodiment of that.  What was originally intended to be a gloomily realistic, thought-provoking drama has been converted into a self-conscious piece of Sirkian melodrama.  As Hedda becomes more and more out of control, still hung up on her ex-lover, who may be the one true love of her life, bothered that she’s not more attentive to her coy flirtations, flittering here and there, making dangerous choices, moment to moment, never really thinking about the consequences, she strikes up the band to play, using anachronistic selections, creating this melodramatic emotional hysteria that is like a bubble that needs to burst.  When an important guest discovers his wife secretly having sex with another man in the supposed privacy of the outdoor gardens, all he can think about is exacting revenge, pulling out a gun, causing a commotion, but rather than shoot the man, he shoots upward, causing the chandelier to come crashing to the ground, creating pandemonium and pure panic.  The Chekhovian gun is an interesting device, because as soon as it’s introduced, viewers know nothing good can come out of it, so audiences simply wait for a developing catastrophe to happen, where full-blown tragedies happen fast and furiously at the end, delving into overwrought melodrama, with little context or explanation, relying upon visual elegance and symbolism, which ends up diluting the corrosive power and shock value of the play.  The men in the film are not developed, but feel like shadows of themselves, where their invisibility mirrors how women were viewed when the play was written.  Hedda is one of Ibsen’s most enigmatic and controversial female protagonists, as she embodies a profound conflict between societal expectations and personal desires, exploring her motivations, psychological depth, and the constraints imposed on her by a patriarchal society that limits her freedom and self-expression.  Through her actions and interactions with other characters, Hedda reveals a desperate attempt to assert power and autonomy in a world where she feels trapped by convention and devoid of purpose, challenging traditional gender roles by critiquing the norms of the surrounding world, while also shedding light on broader themes of freedom, manipulation, and existential despair, revealing symptoms of a postmodern anxiety.  Ultimately a complex character who defies easy categorization, exuding despair, a yearning for beauty, and a depth of soul that gives the character complexity and grandeur, Hedda’s tragic fate is a result of her internal conflict and her inability to reconcile her desire for control with the endless limitations imposed on her by society.  Unlike most other nineteenth-century writers, for whom the female characters could never be more than a foil for the male hero’s existential crisis, Ibsen dared to make a woman the bearer of his play’s most fundamental philosophical preoccupations, to turn this specific woman’s crisis into a scorching critique of the stifling repressive conditions of their times.  Like Hamlet, who is deeply challenging to understand, Hedda embodies humanity, tapping into the universality of women and what really constitutes freedom, which is a profoundly feminist move.

Nia DaCosta's Closet Picks  Criterion Closet on YouTube (4:56)

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii)

 

Writer/director Radu Jude

Director on the set with Ilinca Manolache

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii)   C+                                                                                                                      Romania  Luxembourg  France  Croatia  Switzerland  Great Britain  (163 mi)  2023  d: Radu Jude  

While Jude had great success with his earlier films, I Don't Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari) (2018) and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc) (2021), this is something else altogether, and while they play out like a contemporary Bucharest trilogy, you wonder just who the audience is for this film, as ugly doesn’t even begin to describe it, though it was listed among the top ten films by Cahiers du Cinéma: Top Ten Films of 2023 - Year-End Lists and John Waters, whose comments are worth mentioning, “A maddeningly radical, tedious, shockingly repetitious, brilliant two-hour-and-43-minute Godard–meets–Harmony Korine Romanian masterpiece in which we spend way too much time locked in the car of a confident, trashy, gum-chewing workaholic PA for a movie company as she does her chores.  When I finished watching the movie, I was pretty sure I didn’t like it, but when I woke up the next morning, I realized I loved it.  Suffer for cinema!  Sometimes it’s worth it!”  While it has the same sardonic tone, taking provocative cinema to the extreme, using satire as a cutting edge as Jude becomes a Hunter S. Thompson gonzo provocateur, where the crudeness of the vulgarity on display is hard to watch, making this a different experience altogether, targeting the attention-challenged TikTok generation, where it’s simply exhausting to sit through for nearly three hours and may challenge anyone to maintain a sense of optimism.  Not sure you’ll ever find a film with as much profanity, most of it aggressively in-your-face with torrid sexual obscenities, with an almost machine gun-like repetition that may sour after a while, as you wonder just what’s the point.  And that’s where this differs from his other films, which typically dealt with the darker aspects of Romanian history, where the message was a core aspect of their existence.  In this film, not so much, as it’s instead all about the brash attitude, like rappers spouting their shit, or social media (or politicians) taking lies and bad taste to the extreme in order to attract viewers, using corrosive black humor in the style of Charlie Hebdo which is baffling and strange, though the onslaught can grow tiresome, as there’s a serious lack of empathy in this film, which is no accident, as it’s a reflection of the changing modern world and the over-controlling corporate challenges that await us.  Using absurd exaggerations as a weapon in offensively toxic ways, Jude apparently couldn’t care less whether you like or comprehend what he’s doing, creating instead this jumbled mess of late Godard dialectical incoherency that defies viewers to stick around till the end, leaving a putrid stench in your mouth afterwards in what the director has described as a “humorless comedy,” which is actually the term he used for his previous film, but it makes more sense here, as the director is literally defying viewers to care about what they see onscreen.  The pessimism felt throughout this exhausting ordeal is unmistakable, an exposé of relentless dehumanization and the rapid decline of civilization, where you don’t kill the messenger for sending this abhorrent message, yet a lingering post-Soviet malaise hovers all over this film, like a shroud of low-lying gaseous fumes contaminating everyone who breathes.  While it’s a uniquely innovative cinematic manifesto, it also drags us through the mud of the worst aspects of social media, which are like endless commercials, forcing viewers to sit through the spewing toxic wreckage of moral rot that we would otherwise routinely avoid, as few films show such casual examples of ingrained prejudice, worn like a badge of honor, where one small takeaway is that none of this would be possible without our obsessional over-reliance on the smartphone.  Many find this scathingly funny, but it lacks the humanity and subversive hilarity of German filmmaker Maren Ade’s 2017 Top Ten List #2 Toni Erdmann, which is really funny, where an outsider’s view takes us into an extravagantly upscale Bucharest mall, complete with the first IMAX theater in Romania, an indoor ice-skating rink, roller-coaster, and multiple children’s playgrounds, yet it exists in a country where hardly anyone has any money.  While the title suggests a sci-fi apocalyptical experience, or something along the lines of Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964), but the title is actually from Polish poet Stanisław Jerzy Lec’s 1957 collection of Unkempt Thoughts, while the film itself is more of a satiric exposé of modern angst, a stream-of-consciousness, long-rambling, nihilist dissertation on the challenges of capitalism tinged with fascist leanings, shot on a mix of iPhone recordings with grainy black and white Super 16mm by Marius Panduru, who has shot most all of Jude’s films.  It’s interesting how Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast (La Bête) (2023) has apocalyptic, end of the world implications, while this film exposes the tedium and banality of modern life that may actually drive us to it.

In keeping with the Eastern European traditions of Dušan Makavejev, Jan Němec, and Věra Chytilová, life behind the Iron Curtain under the authoritative dictates of Communism created a repressive need for the outlandish, with filmmakers often resorting to surrealism or exaggerated existential absurdity to reflect the state of mind of ordinary people caught up in suffocating circumstances, literally crying out to be heard, where there was an insatiable desire to be free.  While Cristian Mungiu and his Palme d’Or winning film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007) may be the best known Romanian filmmaker, over the past twenty years Jude has become one of Romania’s most provocative and prolific auteurs, directing 10 solo feature films, numerous short films, more than 100 commercials, plus a television series, though he was a three-time reject of Romania’s national film school, as he is brazenly dismissive of any formal conventions, currently a resident in Berlin under The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.  His breakthrough film, an understated family study Lampa cu caciula/ The tube with a hat | Radu Jude (2006) YouTube (22:37), is one of the most acclaimed Romanian short films ever made.  In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Jude signed an open letter published in the French daily newspaper Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, the establishment of a humanitarian corridor into Gaza for humanitarian aid, and the release of all hostages (Claire Denis, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, ...).  A prolific reader, making obscure references to books and history in films that are ultra-contemporary and entirely unique, fusing highbrow with lowbrow, capturing the dialectical relationship between modern art and popular culture, enthralled by the random, amateur nature of unfiltered TIkTok clips, Jude’s ferociously bleak, helter-skelter film is a mixed-media collage targeting modern-day Romania, with its corrupt politics, rampant capitalism gone awry, previous old-style Communism, racism, sexism, traffic jams and terrible highway driving, though perhaps most vociferously skewering internet culture, becoming an absurdist epic about all those little things that are taking us to the end of the world, while our own capitulation to these same exploitive forces leaves us slowly accepting and embracing our inevitable end.  Featuring the exhausted, sleep-deprived, and underpaid film production assistant Angela (Ilinca Manolache, with a small role in both his prior films), she couldn’t be more bitter or cynical about her employer never giving her a break, always pushing her to do more, suggesting she drink another Red Bull (taken in excess it is linked to abnormal heart rhythm, heart attack, and even death), as she resentfully drives around the congested, billboard-laced streets of Bucharest filming work accident victims who go on camera encouraging the use of safety equipment, hoping they will be the one selected to air on television, as that ensures them winning 500 Euros.  Reminiscent of the old TV show Queen for a Day (1956-64), where contestants competed in tales of misfortune, with the audience determining whose hardship was most worthy of the grand prize, where the show itself was basically a diversion for the network’s brazen attempts to sell commercials.  It’s worth mentioning that working yourself to death, driving until you are exhausted, is how many, including this director, got their start in cinema as shamelessly exploited young production assistants, doing the thankless and often dangerous work behind the scenes, with Jude indicating that part of the film’s inspiration was a fellow production assistant’s death in a car crash from falling asleep at the wheel after working ridiculously long hours.  Manolache has been heavily praised for her scathing performance, which includes an outrageous alter-ego character she concocted on her own years earlier during Covid lockdown, the wildly profane Bobiță, a modern day Borat, a repugnant, bald-headed misogynist with a penchant for obscenity-laced tirades and a distinctive male appearance from using a Snapchat face filter, superimposing an AI face over hers on TikTok parodies spewing right-wing, Andrew Tate-style venom that she posts on her phone several times a day, describing Romania as a “nation of sluts and pimps,” as hugely aggressive satire merges into the grotesque, which is viewed as a reflection of the overall society.  In a karmic twist of fate, Tate just happened to be indicted a year ago in Romania on charges of rape and human trafficking.  Ironically, Angela, the driver, is on the receiving end of this same kind of toxic masculinity vulgarity, as she is continually harassed by sexist, hostility-spewing male drivers on the road, becoming a regular target of profanity-laced insults, as misogyny is normalized, reproduced, and legitimized, while human suffering is caricatured and commercialized. 

The unexpected twist with this film is intercutting Angela’s monotonous travels in her car with clips from Lucian Bratu’s obscure 1982 film ANGELA MOVES ON, made during the communist dictatorship of Ceaușescu, one of the few with a female protagonist, while the screenwriter was also a woman, film critic Eva Sârbu, now embraced as a feminist film, subtitled “a conversation with a 1982 film,” which follows a female cab driver named Angela (Dorina Lazăr) visiting many of the same locations.  Conjuring up images of the past with the present, including food lines, which were forbidden to be shown in that era, and a long line of assembled people waiting to board a bus, it’s worth mentioning that at the time very few could afford to take cabs, where the world has changed significantly since the liberation from Ceaușescu in 1989, yet there’s a blasé attitude about newly won freedoms, where in both films there’s a crushing indifference to the world around them.  Both Angelas they spend an inordinate amount of time in their car, with the camera always finding the exact same angle in Jude’s film, quite a leap from the front seat car scenes of Kiarostami’s static camera in TASTE OF CHERRY (1997) or TEN (2002), where the present is shot in black and white, as she listens to raucously provocative music on the radio, anything to keep her from falling asleep at the wheel while working an 18-hour day, often interrupted with more instructions from her boss, a victim of an endless circle of exploitation, while the earlier footage is in color, often slowed down or Zoomed-in, as the director is fond of changing speed, yet both female characters are continually objectified, exhibiting their own private thoughts about the people they meet, often sarcastic jibes about what jerks the men are, exuding their own fierce independence.  The earlier film shows a completely different Bucharest, as there are less cars, which look exactly the same, no capitalist ads, while curiously showing the old neighborhood intact that Ceaușescu leveled to build his Palace of the Parliament, a massive urban planning project that displaced 40,000 citizens, and while there is expressed anger, it’s nothing like what we see in the modern era.  There’s no background information about the injured workers, who are viewed only superficially, not as real people, manipulated by an Austrian television production company operating in Romania, so they come off in a purely pathetic light, often surrounded by family, all hoping for a chance at the money they so desperately need.  On the other hand, the television executives have an aristocratic air of superiority, characterized by marketing executive Nina Hoss as Doris Goethe, supposedly the great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous German poet (his last heir died in the 19th century), where her casual indifference to the problems in Romania suggest she couldn’t care less, as all that matters is how her company looks, providing a façade of caring about safety regulations, which is all a hoax, as it’s really all about making money, where it’s surprising how easily Romanians willingly submit to foreign interests, like some sort of Faustian bargain.  In a Zoom call, we see her face floating over the Chicago River with a Trump property to the right.  German director Uwe Boll appears in a cameo as himself directing a cheesy sci-fi horror movie, where he gets into a conversation with Angela while she’s making the rounds, as she’s fascinated that he actually threatened to beat up film critics who despise his films, bragging about his boxing ability, Clip: Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (MUBI) YouTube (1:30), which plays into Bobiță’s misogynist leanings.  There is a silent memorial montage of more than 100 crosses constructed along the side of the road paying tribute to those who perished on a dangerous highway, where despite 600 deaths, nothing has been done to alleviate the road hazards.  A lengthy final sequence is the coup de grâce, featuring a fixed camera film shoot of a man injured outside the factory where he worked when a car ran into an unlit and unmarked crossing gate at night which hit the man in the head, leaving him in a coma for a year and paralyzed from the waist down afterwards, now spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.  Surrounded by his wife, daughter, and mother, the safety video is staged right in front of the factory where the accident occurred, where we see the rusty gate, but his testimony is gradually altered in repeated scenes, as after each he’s instructed not to mention certain words that might reduce viewership, subject them to lawsuits, or even worse, public scrutiny, peeling away everything that’s human about his story, with the victim showing a mounting frustration, which culminates when it starts to rain and the family is soaked waiting to finish the shoot.  Behind the scenes we hear voices speaking, where the subject is actually belittled and denigrated by the film crew, clearly expressing a pro-factory slant, as they blame him for the accident, where viewers are able to see how easily corporate sponsors can manipulate content to suit their own interests.  While the incidents are actually due to blatant security breaches of the company, with all the accidents occurring after long overtime hours, they use these videos to clean their hands of negligence.  Jude asks viewers to weigh the harm done by the corporations or Bobiță, as both feed us a load of crap.  But which is more toxic?  Which causes more irreversible trauma?  The biggest surprise, only learned afterwards, is that his mother is actually a much older Dorina Lazăr, the star of the 1982 film intercut throughout, suggesting not much at all has changed in Romania, particularly when it comes to women, while it also remains the poorest country in the EU, though they’re quick to point out that Albania (not in the EU) is worse.