Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc)

 

Writer/director Radu Jude

BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc)  B   Romania  Luxembourg  Czech Republic  Croatia  Switzerland  Great Britain  (106 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d:  Radu Jude

Bucharest in the year of Covid, a wildly provocative and controversial a film, sure to inspire hisses and groans, yet also uncontrollable laughter, as this rather demented, in-your-face entry into the Berlin Film Fest took away the Golden Bear for Best Film at the first-ever virtual event, where winners offered their congratulation thoughts by Zoom afterwards.  Coming on the heels of I Don't Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari) (2018), where a Romanian filmmaker held his own country accountable for what happened during the war, as Romania was complicit in the Holocaust with anti-Semitic Nazi war crimes, responsible for the killing of more Jews than any other country except Germany, yet the nation would prefer to overlook those tiny details, still viewing their military heroes with reverence, with the director claiming it was taboo to even speak about this subject when he was growing up, resorting to comic sarcasm and absurd black comedy, as in Romania the door has opened for more far-right nationalists to push anti-Semitic hate speech among their xenophobic rhetoric.  But that seems mild compared to this film, which opens with an X-rated sex scene that has been censored for American distribution, placing a full-screen block over the material with comic book style wording that reveals what you’re missing, yet few scenes are more absurd than a woman hilariously attempting to carry on a conversation with someone in the next room while delivering a blow job.  Adding the presence of whips, spicy language, dirty talk, and edgy, salacious material only whips audiences into a frenzy, where at the moment, only iTunes carries an uncensored version in America.  This raises an interesting question for today’s society, as what’s worse, porn or genocide?  Explicit violence is routinely shown on television, yet nudity is not, revealing the moral hypocrisy of our own media standards, as nudity sparks public outrage, while no one has any problem with murder or genocide, which often lead the nightly news broadcasts.  Often pointing to the protection of children, apparently showing them nudity is far more harmful than escalating degrees of extreme violence.  But the central premise may be moral hypocrisy, recalling the societal satire of Luis Buñuel, or Godard’s philosophical rants in Two or Three Things I Know About Her (2 ou 3 Choses que Je Sais d’Elle) (1967), where according to Screendaily’s Jonathan Romney ('Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn': Berlin Review - Screen Daily), “The real pornography that has overrun Romania, it seems, is the obscenity of capitalism.”  Resorting to an almost Monty Python comic tone, the exaggerated satiric style is often hard to digest, as much of this is presented fast and furious at a relentless pace, where mocking laughter can frequently be heard on the audio soundtrack.  One of the few films depicting a society wearing masks during the Covid crisis, including the lead character, Emi Cilibiu (Katia Pascariu), who ironically played a nun in Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills (După dealuri) (2012), a history teacher at a prominent “Oxford quality” high school for the Romanian elite, seen in the opening having baudy sex with her husband comically set to the music of “Lili Marlene,” 1939 Lale Andersen - Lili Marlene (original German version) YouTube (3:12), a sentimental German love song co-opted by the Nazis during the war, with the husband uploading the sex tape to his phone, creating a public scandal when the tape is leaked from a private web site and the pornographic video starts appearing on various Internet sites, with parents and students outraged at what they see.  Emi is quickly informed that there will be an impromptu parent-teacher meeting later that evening to decide the fate of her teaching career, an event that hangs over her head for the rest of the day. 

Broken down into three segments, the detached and overly somber first reveals Emi wandering through the streets of Bucharest, a kind of scriptless cinéma vérité montage as she wanders in and out of various stores, blending into street traffic and pedestrians, occasionally talking to her husband on the phone, only to receive more bad news, as a series of phone calls suggest that the situation is escalating out of her control, as all attempts to take down the video have failed, eventually walking into a neighborhood pharmacy asking for a single Xanax pill, as she’s suffering from a particularly bad day.  They refuse to fill the prescription without a doctor’s order, but offer her a plant-based alternative instead, which she gladly takes at an outdoor coffee café.  An underlying angst is felt throughout this segment, with the camera often cutting away, finding something else that grabs one’s attention, before relocating Emi meeting overly rude or violently angry men that seem to be thinking only of themselves, blocking sidewalks in their monster cars or yelling obscenities at anyone who objects.  This overriding sense of entitlement via aggression seems to pervade throughout Bucharest, reminiscent of Ulrich Seidl’s take on Vienna in DOG DAYS (2001), revealing characters who are either bigoted, small-minded, or just plain revolting, with an angry motorist deliberately running over a pedestrian who claims to have the right of way, where it’s impossible to tell which is spreading faster, the Covid virus or the pervasive spread of intolerance.  The second narrative-free segment is entitled Short Dictionary of Anecdotes, Signs and Wonders, offering a series of caustic observations that alternate between witty remarks and damning facts, like a malicious human collage of collective stupidity, a surreal audiovisual montage not seen since the days of Dušan Makavejev in WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM (1971), or SWEET MOVIE (1974), though his earliest films Man Is Not a Bird (1965) and Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967) show irreverent signs of living behind the Iron Curtain, becoming a cinema manifesto on the paradox of living in Romania, often contrasting the communist past with its capitalist present.  Using something of a subversive comic book tone, a Romanian Mad magazine, the film pokes fun at Ceaușescu and the former communist state, using a multitude of archival footage, where one scene shows little kids gathered together singing fascist songs that glorify nationalist patriotism through war, which is entitled “Children, political prisoners of their parents.”  After Ceauşescu banned abortion in 1965 (just legalized in 1957), Romania saw the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in all of Europe, followed by the prevalence of dangerous black market abortions, which was well documented by Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winning film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007).  If that’s not enough, there’s a follow-up sequence informing viewers just how strongly the Romanian Orthodox Church supported the ultra-right fascist state and the atrocities they committed, informing us that during the 1989 Romanian revolution to overthrow Ceaușescu, “when revolutionaries sought shelter from Army bullets, the cathedral kept its doors closed,” with footage of nuns happily singing fascist songs.  These sequences leave brief imprints in the minds of viewers, recalling what it was like to grow up in Eastern European countries, particularly under the dictatorial authority of Ceaușescu.  Jude even pokes fun at history, and capitalism, revealing how the French and Romanian Revolutions have become commercial brands of cigarettes and wine.  In a contemporary sequence, farmers are seen dancing during the pandemic, yet maintaining social distancing by holding long sticks between them.  There are curious references to the early days of pornography in cinema, while also documenting that “blowjob” is the most-searched word in the Romanian Internet Dictionary, while the subject of rape is culturally skewed, with statistics highlighting a male-dominated culture that continues to maintain a backwards view of women, still seen as subservient to the needs of men, who maintain their right to take “what is theirs” by force, as apparently 55% of Romanians believe rape is justified in some instances, such as women wearing provocative clothing.  Since the fall of Ceaușescu in 1989, there has been a growing sentiment of hatred towards minorities and the disadvantaged with each passing year, suggesting that Romania lives in a Darwinian universe where only the strongest survives.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, we learn that six out of ten Romanian children experience physical abuse at home.    

In the style of a chamber play, the parent-teacher meeting of the third segment takes place in an outdoor schoolyard setting, due to Covid restrictions, reminiscent of Abderrahmane Sissako’s film BAMAKO (2006), where an African Truth and Justice commission places war criminals on trial in an outdoor setting where neighborhood people can drop by and linger while listening to the testimony.  In this sequence, Emi faces her accusers, all wearing a variety of masks, who offer condemnation for her shocking video which is played in its entirety before the mingling crowd, each coming closer to get a better look, particularly the men, with one man leering at the projected images before the full force of the community weighs against her, calling her a porn star, a harlot, a whore, and all manner of shunned creatures that have no business teaching their children.  Emi strenuously defends herself, claiming she neither put the recording on the Internet, nor distributed it, claiming what she does on her own time is private, as the video represents consensual acts between two married people, then questioning why children have access to adult websites where they are strictly forbidden.  As a teacher she has an impeccable record, with an excellent relationship with the students in her class, but the jury of parents takes on the picture of an eclectic social group, consisting of a priest, an intellectual, a police officer, a military figure, an airline pilot, a diplomat, a career woman, even a Czech émigré who out of nowhere spews some commentary on Václav Havel.  Hounded for her immorality and incredible bad taste, she is barraged by a series of insults, called every name in the book, with the assembled mob taking on a lynch mob mentality, where she is guilty even if facts prove otherwise.  As this mock trial goes on, it becomes a savage indictment of Romanian society, as it deviates into different detours along the way, with parents questioning some of her lesson assignments, promoting “Jewish lies about the Holocaust,” suggesting she may be indoctrinating the children by revealing Romania’s complicity with the Nazi’s during the Holocaust, something they refuse to believe, visibly obsessed with pre-modern ideas on what is considered acceptable class content, harkening back to the pre-Ceaușescu days when they attended school, which plays into Emi’s hands, as she defends herself well, even re-iterating some saucy language written by Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu (whose domineering bust sits behind Emi, continually seen being polished by a cleaning woman), quoting one of his verses from memory, which the gathering throng describes as a blatant lie, claiming she’s making it all up.  The intellectual pulls out a strong defense about what’s in the best interest of children, offering lengthy quotes from his phone to support her position, where the director offers an enlightened position, turning this into an intellectual discussion on education that is quite provocative, but then someone will complain about a particular class assignment that required excessive memorization, where she has to defend her teaching methods, quoting the benefits to the developing mind, even if the passages are forgotten after a while.  There are accusations that she’s anti-Antonescu, who presided over a period of authoritarian dictatorship, yet still beloved by the military, even if his fascist and anti-Semitic methods are frowned upon today, with the parents mirroring the prejudices of Romanian society, particularly their outright hatred of Jews, Gypsies, and gays.  What this turns into is a rather exhilarating discussion of ideas, referencing Hannah Arendt and Isaac Babel, yet the shameful name-calling brings the discussion back down to earth, refusing to consider her actual qualities, concluding she’s too morally indecent to teach their precious children. The film has three different endings, none of them good, as each plays out as a version of the truth, yet the distinctive differences add a humorous element of exaggeration and farce, making something of a mockery of the idea of a public trial, turning the teacher into a super hero who implements her own brand of justice.  The director tries to show that sex is a part of life, just like war, public discourse, consumerism, and Covid, where this film succinctly summarizes the culture wars that are currently being fought in a number of Eastern European countries, with the urban elites defending all the achievements of liberal democracies since the 1990’s, yet there is also a regressive wing that prefers a heavier hand of authority, with Romania experiencing a far-right resurgence, opening the door for the more rigidly dogmatic politics from the communist era, yet few films expose what’s happening in contemporary Romania better than Alexander Nanau’s Collective (Colectiv) (2019).   

Collective (Colectiv)

Director Alexander Nanau

Cătălin Tolontan

Mirela Neag

Cătălin Tolontan (center), with Mirela Neag and Răzvan Lutac

Tedy Ursuleanu

 

Vlad Voiculescu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COLLECTIVE (Colectiv)           A                                                                                         Romania  Luxembourg  Germany  (109 mi)  2019  d: Alexander Nanau

One of the best documentaries in recent memory, offering a profound level of insight and raw emotion, a sadly tragic yet groundbreaking portrait exposing a corrupt Romanian political regime, where the nation’s health system is not run by professionals, but Mafioso types who bribe their way into positions of power, then steal the nation blind, setting up millions in offshore accounts and enriching themselves at the expense of unsuspecting patients who suffer dire catastrophic consequences as a result.  Recalling the theater of the absurd elements of Cristi Puiu’s legendary The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), a scathing indictment of the indifference of the antiquated health care system and the film that put the searing realism of Romanian cinema on the map, bringing in Romania’s preeminent editor Dana Brunescu, who edited Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007), arguably the most impactful film of the Romanian New Wave, yet this is the first Romanian film nominated for an Academy Award, receiving bids in two categories, best foreign language and best documentary feature film.  This may be the definitive investigative journalism film ever made, meticulously detailed, something along the lines of Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight (2015), but much better, a film that packs a punch, acutely relevant, offering a dramatic sense of urgency, yet also suspenseful, where the tightly edited interweaving style captures events behind the scenes in preparation for press conferences that unleash a series of bombshells exposing massive corruption that literally rocks the nation, revealing the insidious ways an entrenched bureaucratic system places profits over patients.  Yet an indifferent public fails to be moved, preferring more lies from the long-established political party already knee deep in corruption rather than hearing the truth, though for many the back and forth in the media of accusations and counter-accusations only kept them confused, where the truth was not evident at the time, making films like this all the more significant, as they clarify what’s needed in order to make a more intelligent assessment.  It’s a stunning revelation, shot in a cinéma vérité style by the director himself, all triggered by a single event in October 2015 captured live on cell phone footage, bringing to light the pandemonium following the outbreak of a fire at Colectiv, a tiny Bucharest nightclub without a fire exit, where four members of the metal band playing died in the fire, only their lead singer Andrei Găluț survived, with some actually trampled to death, 27 dying at the scene, while more than 200 others suffered severe burn injuries.  In the following months, nearly 40 more (all young people), who suffered far less serious burns than others who survived, died inexplicably in the hospital, learning afterwards that it was from severe bacterial infections developed while in the hospital.  Playing out like a 1970’s paranoia-filled conspiracy film, the director slowly unravels the truth by following a small investigative team led by Cătălin Tolontan, the editor-in-chief of the Gazeta Sporturilor (aka: Sports Gazette), a publication known for investigating sports doping scandals, also exposing the corruption of two sports ministers who subsequently served jail time, aided by journalists Mirela Neag and Răzvan Lutac, as they find an explosive story in the aftermath of the tragedy.  With the director obtaining full access, we are privy to their reporting, learning what they learn at the moment they do, while also following them to press conferences with state officials who deny there’s a problem.  Thousands marched in protest against the government, the first time since the 1989 revolution that so many people took to the street (The 1989 Romanian Revolution and the Fall of Ceausescu), which caught the eye of the director, leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Victor Ponta from the Social Democratic Party (remnants of the former Communist Party) just a month afterwards, setting the scene for a scandal of epic proportions and an extensive Watergate-like exposé of the government itself.  While the film itself is confined to Romania, it’s easy to see ramifications elsewhere, as there are parallels, for instance, in Trump’s bungled handling of the Covid pandemic, as needless lives were lost by the criminal negligence of a callous administration whose brazen indifference was staggering, presiding over a government where lining their pockets was their sole concern, arguably the most corrupt administration in our nation’s history, where holding onto power is all that matters, resorting to outright lies to cover up their own incompetence, with a sizeable portion of the population all too willing to believe, buying into the lie that the election was stolen.  If the Trump presidency has taught us anything, it is that without investigative journalism, there would be no democracy. 

When we meet Tolontan and his team, they’re ready to publish a story revealing the disinfectant products mandated for use in sanitizing 2000 operating rooms at 350 hospitals across the country have been watered down and diluted, bought on the cheap to save money, where their own lab testing finds the contents are significantly less than what’s stated on the label, suggesting hospital utensils are never thoroughly sterilized, leaving them subject to rampant bacterial infections, revealing the government never adequately investigated the supplier or his defective products, following a trail to Hexi Pharma and its owner, Dan Condrea, with bags of disinfectant seen leaving the back door of the factory.  Condrea is immediately questioned by a police criminal investigation unit, but released, dying in a car crash under mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards in an apparent suicide and/or mob hit, while the Minister of Health, Patriciu Achimaș-Cadariu, orders his own investigation into the so-called tainted products.  After a brief period of time, Achimaș-Cadariu releases his findings, declaring all outside labs as suspect and unreliable, that only an official government lab had the legal authority, finding that the disinfection solutions were proven to be effective 95% of the time, dismissing the evidence provided by Tolontan.  Yet more protests ensue, as Tolontan publishes reports that the hospital management refused to sign off the transfer of burn patients to hospitals in Austria or Germany until it was too late, trying to maintain the illusion of competence, unwilling to spend the money to fly them out of the country, confirming that the intelligence service had known for years that bacterial infections were killing people but did nothing, which forces the Minister of Health to resign, replaced by a young new temporary replacement, Vlad Voiculescu, a nonpartisan, former patient’s rights activist who is given a year to sort it all out before the next elections, a daunting prospect, to say the least, promising more open transparency in getting to the root of the problem.  The film shifts from Tolontan and his team to Voiculescu, barely in his 30’s, a reformer with wit, intelligence, and a quiet demeanor, who opens himself up to the cameras for thorough scrutiny, seen moving behind the scenes in his office, where the aims of both government and newspaper investigations converge in a desperate attempt to find immediate solutions for a broken system.  But it won’t die easily, with Voiculescu frustrated at every turn, as politicians are connected to the hiring of hospital managers, none of whom appear qualified, yet they are granted legal authorization to run hospitals they know nothing about, described as “a nest of unscrupulous mobsters” siphoning off money for themselves, making it all about money and greed, the patients be damned.  So entrenched in their positions, like little fiefdoms of power, they are isolated and given political protection, literally burrowed into the bureaucracy and hidden from public view, making it extremely hard to investigate a government built upon a series of kickbacks, as administrators, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and government officials are all on the take, confronting one obstacle after another in trying to get rid of them, as the Social Democratic Party was dismantling the judiciary system in an attempt to legalize corruption and stay in power.  Undermining the investigations at every turn, transparency does not sit well with Romanian politicians, calling the journalists alarmists and agitators with fake news, creating a national hysteria that may have driven Condrea to suicide, instead espousing nationalist views, led by Bucharest mayor Gabiela Firea, saying Romanians should not rely upon medical services abroad, as it’s cheaper to provide medical care here at home, sabotaging the credibility of the accusations and rising death toll, insisting hospitals meet their own safety standards, relying upon their own government experts, basically lying to the public in the face of the coming storm, refusing to give ground.      

Among the most remarkable aspects of the film is its attention to the burn victims, who were treated horrifically, often doubling up in the same beds, an inexcusable practice, showing no regard for sanitation standards, which are particularly acute with burn victims, as they are so suspect to infections.  One of the burn victims is Tedy Ursuleanu, becoming the heart and soul of the film, introduced with the haunting music of Beth Hart - Caught Out In The Rain - YouTube (7:13), offering a staggering commentary on death, “If I die I don’t care, I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with this man.”  With much of her head and body scarred from the fire, she had to have her fingers amputated, fitted for a prosthetic hand, yet she is often seen at political events, showing her face in public, remaining a positive force for victim’s rights, openly posing for a photographer, willingly exposing her skin and body, where the enlarged photographs line an upscale art gallery, representing a symbol for change.  Voiculescu is proud to meet her, placing her portrait in his office, an ever-present reminder of what drives his work, insisting upon providing structural changes that will prevent a similar event from occurring.  Every whistleblower that comes forward is a woman, as men are simply too ingrained into a system rooted in the past, and none of the reform measures would have happened without the bold actions of these women.  Dr. Camelia Roiu is a female whistleblower from  a major hospital, one of the doctors on staff, providing the most hideous video imaginable, as maggots are crawling around the rotting flesh of a heavily bandaged burn victim, suggesting their wounds have not been cleaned and sanitized, dying shortly afterwards.  It’s impossible to watch that footage and not be moved, with Voiculescu recoiling in disgust at what he sees, knowing the staff are complicit in the death by simply not doing their jobs, showing utter indifference to the special needs of the patients.  Anyplace else, that hospital would have been shut down, with the managerial team fired on the spot, but not in Romania, where political clout not only allows this sort of thing to happen, but to persist afterwards, with the hospital refuting all charges of corruption, literally using the lives of citizens as guinea pigs to experiment with, a ghastly plan under any circumstances, yet due to the increasing distrust with the hospitals, and the burn unit’s susceptibility to infection, all the burn patients are sent out of the country for treatment, becoming ping pong balls in the political debate, where outside of this young reformer, few in government really have the best interests of Romanian citizens in mind, as they are traditionally feeding at the trough of rampant corruption, which has infested the government.  According to AP newswire reports (In Romania, hospitals are as scary as the coronavirus - The ...), Romania spends less on health care than any other EU member-state, has the highest mortality rate from treatable diseases and one of the bloc’s lowest life expectancies.  The government has built only one new hospital in three decades, revealing a bleak outlook, as the Social Democratic Party status quo is constantly reinforced at each election cycle, with young people sitting out the vote.  The film ends, appropriately, at a cemetery visitation, as we see Narcis Hogea along with his wife and daughter driving to the cemetery to visit his son’s gravesite, where they meet with the grandparents, lighting candles, bringing flowers, while offering a symbolic drink to the deceased.  Alex Hogea (age 19) died less than a month after the incident in a hospital in Vienna, suffering from infected burn wounds following a delayed transfer from Romania that probably cost him his life.  He was a university student in Bucharest whose life was abruptly cut short.  On their way home, afterwards, in a poignant moment, the music on the radio reminds them of him, The Alternate Routes- Nothing More (Official Video) YouTube (3:23), “We are how we treat each other when the day is done,” becoming an anthem for all that was lost.