Tales from the Golden Age

Tales from the Golden Age (2010) dir. Cristian Mungiu, Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru
Starring: Alexandru Potocean, Avram Birau, Diana Cavallioti, Radu Iacoban, Tania Popa, Vlad Ivanov

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

I don’t know much about Romanian history or politics, but I do know that former Communist era dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu was a brutal tyrant dictator, the Stalin of Romania if you will. In Tales from the Golden Age, star director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days), has managed to find humour in this terrifying regime with this sublime and delightful comedy about five urban legends of the era – absurdist tales told with the now familiar neo-realist cinematic style of this new generation of Romanian filmmakers.

The opening film Legend of the Official Visit is the best, a charming story of a small village expecting an official Party visit. As the townsfolk scramble to complete their preparations, which includes finding pigeons, corraling cows, and possibly hanging fruit from the bare trees, shattering news of the concellation of the trip results in a riotously funny alternative.

The next entry Legend ofthe Party Photographer equals if not bests The Official Visit’s sharp absurdist wit – a story about Ceauşescu’s publicity staff who madly rush to doctor a photo of the dictator meeting with the French President before the paper hits the streets. Mungiu transforms the stone cold fear of Ceauşescu’s wrath into hilarious comedy of errors and irony and one great gag to payoff the episode.

Only the fourth segment, Legend of the Greedy Policeman, hits the same level of brilliance of the first two, showing the absurd lengths to which a regular working class joe will go to slaughter a pig under cover of his fellow residents of his housing complex. Episodes three and five, Legend of the Chicken Driver and Legend of the Air Sellers are more morose and melancholic, telling stories of hopeless romances which never consummate.

Tales miraculously manages the subvert the difficulties with most omnibus films by maintaining a consistent tone and style throughout each of the segments, each of the tales finding humour in the desperation, poverty, and general fear of the authority which blanketed most of the working population of the country during this time. With Mungiu as the sole writer it means there’s a consistent voice, which makes the whole greater than the sums of its parts.

Unfortunately the film falls short of greatness, which is annoying because it could have been corrected with one easy fix. Everyone knows in these types of compilations, whether it’s a program of short films, or something like Paris Je t’aime, the best one always goes last. It’s headscratcher of a decision to anchor the film with the oblique Legend of the Air Sellers, the slowest and tonally subdued entry of the bunch. Leaving the audience with the hilariously absurd and poignant final shot of the townsfolk of Vizuresti swinging on the roundabout endlessly in the Official Visit would have left a much better taste in the audience’s mouth than the unresounding final shot in Air Sellers. Regardless, Tales is the most delightful comedy of the year and another grand achievement for Romanian cinema.

Also, it’s important to note that six episodes were actually filmed and presented in Cannes, but not all at the same time. For each Cannes screening five shorts were screened with one alternating episode missing. In this theatrical version currently playing in Toronto, and soon in select cities around the country, it’s the five short version minus the Legend of the Zealous Activist, an episode I can’t comment upon, but assume will eventually show up on the DVD.

Tales from the Golden Age

Tales from the Golden Age (2009) dir. by Uricara, Hofer, Popescu, Marculescu, Mungui
Starring: Diana Cavallioti, Vlad Ivanov and Alexandru Potocean

***1/2

By Blair Stewart

One of the more memorable comedies to arrive in recent memory comes from an unexpected but sizable wellspring, life under a flailing Dictatorship. Returning to the same period as his tightly-strung 2007 thriller "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", writer-director Cristian Mungiu with four of his contemporaries (Hanno Hofer, Ioana Uricaru, Constantin Popescu and Razvan Marculescu) trade stories about the ass-end of Nicolae Ceausescu's three decade-long reign of Romania.

A 5-part omnibus of wry humour with one sombre detour, "Tales from the Golden Age" relates 'legends' behind a regime gone senile as the first short can attest. According to the urban myth/wild rumour/private joke that is 'The Legend of the Official Visit', a small-town is buzzing with mild terror at an imminent inspection by government cronies. The local Mayor and Secretary run about to bring cows in from the fields (there isn't that many to go around), pigeons to fly about (pigeons weren't local), fruit to be tied from trees (most goods were exported out of Romania to pay debts ) and the carnival arrives to boot (but everyone needs it's fuel).

A town must keep up its appearances during the 'Golden Age', which was the moniker for the last 15 years of Ceausescu as called by morons or cynics. This is the set-up for several epic punchlines on par with the skewering of the GDR in "Goodbye Lenin" and the burning barn scene in "The Fireman's Ball".

The other mementos passed on include a cautionary tale in apricide by a hungry copper, photographic problems posed to a propagandist when the free-world pays a visit to Bucharest,and a Bonnie and Clyde couple stealing from countrymen their hard-earned air.

While the content could have taken the route of the dour architecture surrounding it, the film mostly remains jaunty in its droll humour, as Ioana Uricara reminisced in her Q&A for the film, this is how you survived when you had nothing else.
This doesn't hold true in the sad middle, "The Legend of the Chicken Driver", which doesn't reveal its purpose until the final moments in a silent, gut-punch reaction shot by Vlad Ivanov.

Outside of this section, "Tales'" humour borders on the surreal of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". The script by Mungiu achieves comically what "4 Months" did dramatically, probing gaps in morality and sanity in a repressive society, and the cast and directors are happy to shovel more dirt on the years of breadlines and Securitate.

This is another triumph for Cristian Mungui and company, and I hope he can join Puiu and Porumboiu in engaging the present day of Romania as well as he has its recent past.

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) dir. Christian Mungiu
Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu and Vlad Ivanov

****

Guest review by Blair Stewart

‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ is a controversial work more talked about than seen. Despite being the surprise, underdog winner of the Palme D'Or this year, it was a conspicuously absurd omission from the Best Foreign Language Shortlist for this year’s Oscar nominations (that's right, it didn't even make the 'shortlist'). A bitter condemnation of life in Romania during the totalitarian reign of Nicolae Ceausescu, Christian Mungiu’s sophomore effort is a rattling experience.

It’s 1987 and we’re placed in an unnamed shithole of a city under the blanket of Communist misrule. For 12 hours we observe the actions of a student, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), as she searches for a way to find her pregnant roommate Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) an abortion. With Romanian society in the grip of Ceausescu’s ‘Golden Age’, and abortions illegal, it becomes a Sisyphean task. From black market wheedling, surveillance and suffocating questioning from all facets, Otilia is forced to perform all the necessary tasks of attending to her weak friend. The question of pro-choice or pro-life is mute as the decision has already been made. What we witness is the consequences. The camera follows Otilia through underlit hotel rooms and various decrepit backalleys. Otilia meets a sordid cast of characters from the callow, opportunistic abortionist, to an upper-caste family simmering with tension at the ring of the telephone. It’s all well beyond loyalty to clean up Gabita’s mess.

The director’s presentation of the dilemma is like a rigid Dogma exercise. Mungiu keeps the camera at eye level, uses one shot for each scene, refrains from using music, and exclusively uses natural light (often plunging the audience into total darkness). It builds up to a sequence when the protagonist has to perform one last crucial task, the realism of which is worthy of the quiet terror throughout the entire ‘No Country for Old Men’.

In the role of the ‘hero’, Anamaria Marinca is fantastic – her guarded face projects the quiet pain of being lower-class and powerless in a corrupt Communist state. Though a minor issue is perhaps the extreme ‘Herzogian’ degree of hardship Otilia is forced to endure. With the entire universe conspiring against her, at times it actually strains the film’s credibility.

Some critics have declared a ‘Romanian New Wave’ based on the success thias film and his fellow countrymen Cristi Puiu’s “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” and Corneliu Poromboiu’s “12:08 East of Bucharest”. I’m eager to seek out the results of this burgeoning movement.

A warning for the squeamish, if you are uncomfortable with the subject matter of abortion this is a realistic representation, proceed cautiously. I highly recommend this film.