Polemical and playful in equal measure, Radu Jude’s Golden Bear-winning satire is a scathing assault on the hypocritical moralising that permeates modern society.
★★★★✰
Since the early 2000s, Romanian cinema has experienced a period of international acclaim that rivals any of Europe’s major film-producing nations. A wave of high-profile victories at prestigious film festivals across the world has cemented the burgeoning Noul Val Romanesc as Eastern Europe’s most prosperous post-Soviet national cinema. The latest of these Romanian festival darlings, Radu Jude, is arguably also their most unique vanguard; an eclectic intellectual with a caustic sense of humour, Jude is fearless both in his audacious formal experimentation and radical political dissent. These facets of his cinema are crystalised with aplomb in his latest film: Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn.
Whilst Jude had previously been fixated on the morally ambiguous details of Romania’s past, with Bad Luck Banging he crashes bawdily into the present day. Katia Pascariu plays Emi, a high school history teacher who becomes embroiled in scandal after her husband uploads their sex tape to a public porn site. This so-called ‘moral transgression’ causes multiple parents to mount a witch-hunt against Emi, culminating in a kangaroo-court trial to decide whether she should be removed from her position at the school. All of this unfolds against the backdrop of COVID-stricken Bucharest, firmly planting the film within the anxious socio-political context of contemporary Romania.
At first glance, Jude’s teacher-porn tale seems fairly comprehensible. Yet, his treatment of this basic narrative is so visually and formally unorthodox that the details of plot simply become secondary footnotes to the film’s swirling cascade of fragmented political discourses. This daring experimentation is perhaps best encapsulated in Jude’s employment of a rigorous tripartite structure, which is bookended by explicit footage of Emi’s amateur sex-tape and the ambiguous conclusion of her public trial.
The majority of the first act follows Emi as she walks around Bucharest, running errands and coming face-to-face with the regressive politics of the city’s locale. Some are sexist, some are racist, others just rude; in a moment of startling absurdity, an old woman stares directly down the camera and tells the audience to eat her see-you-next-Tuesday. Not without merit then, but of Bad Luck Banging’s three sections, this is the weakest. Jude films with a documentary-style observance, often allowing the camera to meander away from Emi to witness the political discord and indulgent consumerism permeating Bucharest. This purposeful aimlessness does become slightly trying at times however, and Jude could be more concise in his damning depiction of the Romanian capital.
Jude’s treatment of this basic narrative is so visually and formally unorthodox that the details of plot simply become secondary footnotes to the film’s swirling cascade of fragmented political discourses
Sandwiched in between two portions of the central sex-tape narrative is Bad Luck Banging’s most unique but problematic chapter: ‘Short Dictionary of Anecdotes, Signs and Wonders’. Eschewing the previously established plot, Jude presents an alphabetical montage sequence of twenty-six definitions, all of which relate to Romanian history, culture and politics. Through this experimental, essay-style sequence, he delineates his views on a variety of topics and concepts, ranging from the French revolution to blowjobs, and even including a postulation on the purpose of cinema itself.
The ‘Short Dictionary’ is effective in providing some wry and profound aphorisms on the ideologies behind Romanian life, however its highly academic and unconventional form is questionable. What exactly is Jude trying to achieve here? If, as he purports, cinema should function as a mirror through which we elucidate the things that harm our society, does such an experimental sequence help the masses to see this reflection? In the majority, the answer would be no. Whilst admirably audacious and hilarious in places, Jude’s middle chapter is also the point at which the film is dangerously close to becoming a slightly overbearing intellectual enterprise.
Emi’s scandal is concluded in the film’s final third, which depicts her public condemnation by the schoolchildren’s parents in the aforementioned kangaroo court-trial. It is here that Jude attacks the hypocritical moral mores of contemporary Romanian society most viciously, creating a lattice of bigoted, moralising voices through the parents’ overlapping dialogue. In one seat, for example, sits a fascistic pilot whose political sympathies are emblematic of a disturbing recent far-right trend in many Eastern European nations. In another, a misogynistic old man insists that Emi’s sex tape be played to the entire room, labelling her ‘revolting’ whilst simultaneously leaning forward to salaciously ogle at the contents of the video. The joke here, of course, is that these people are so busy judging Emi that they fail to see the paradoxes of their own prejudices. Reminiscent of a heated Twitter debate between two equally ignorant parties, you’re not sure whether the trial is funny to watch or really quite worrying – but you’re pretty certain it’s a bit of both.
Unbelievably, Bad Luck Banging concludes with a segment even more bizarre than its compendium of anecdotes. Jude presents us with three alternate endings to Emi’s public trial, each of which depict a differing verdict with a variety of absurd reactions. The last of these denouements is, quite possibly, the most explicit superhero action sequence you’ll see at the cinema this year. And with the film’s final freeze frame, Jude leaves us with one last silicone middle finger to orthodoxy, hypocrisy and social prejudice in Romania today. Loony, indeed.
The Verdict
Half essay film, half absurdist sex comedy, all uniquely Loony; Bad Luck Banging is one of the year’s most caustic political satires and a unique addition to the ever-impressive Noul Val Romanesc. Jude’s uncompromising intellectualism may be intimidating to the uninitiated, but he provides enough moments of pure bizarr-tistry to keep the attention of even the most restless viewer.
Words by Will Jones
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