By Beatrice Leeming, @LeemingBeatrice
Arthouse cinema is often associated with French films of the 1950s and ‘60s. At a push, critical interest extends to experimental Czech cinema of the same period. In the Anglo-American world, insufficient attention and appreciation is afforded to the Romanian New Wave (RNW), a concentration of creative and critically acclaimed cinema made around and into the new millennium. Sharing a similarly ‘difficult’ filmic grammar with the arthouse genre more generally (think long takes, sparse dialogue, and slow-pacing) these films were distinctive in a different way. What makes RNW such a joy is its treatment of vernacular memories from the communist period, its soft-criticism of transition and the temporal angst of the 1990s, and its conscious default to self-deprecation.
The most famous film of the RNW ‘moment’ might well be The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005).[1] This film does not take the communist era as its setting, but it hints at the continuity between the pre- and post-1989 periods via its portrayal of institutional spaces and the individual’s navigation of them. The film follows Lazarescu through a staid and inefficient healthcare system, unable to find him the help (or the humanity) he needs. But despite such a serious subject matter – in 2019, one in four Romanians had insufficient access to healthcare, according to The Economist – the film is a beautiful parable on being a Samaritan in a socio-economic system set against self-sacrifice.[2]
The Death of Mr Lazarescu is emblematic of the RNW genre by way of its recourse to humour, confrontation with tragedy, and qualification of the ‘collective memory’ of Romanian history. If this sounds too bleak, then one might try Tales from the Golden Age (2001), a series of shorts that mocks the absurdity of late-socialist Romania; everything from its Orwellian bureaucracy to its folkloric festivals.[3] Or consider perhaps a road movie, Stuff and Dough (2001),which parallels the coming-of-age of disaffected Romanians with the post-communist maturation of Romania in the 1990s.[4]
RNW offers something for everyone. And it is an entertaining reminder that history, memory and media deserve constant qualification to expose the variety, discursivity, and dynamic interrelation of each constituent part.
References:
[1] The Death of Mr. Lazarescu Dir. Cristi Puiu Prods. Alexandru Munteanu, Bobby Păunescu and Anca Puiu. (2005).
[2] The Economist, ‘Romania’s health-care system, the EU’s worst, struggles to reform’ (2019) accessed at [https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/21/romanias-health-care-system-the-eus-worst-struggles-to-reform] (viewed 16 January 2022)
[3] Tales from the Golden Age Dir. Hanno Höfer, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru and Răzvan Mărculescu. Prods. Cristian Mungiu, Pascal Caucheteux and Oleg Mutu. (2009)
[4] Stuff and Dough. Dir. Cristi Puiu. Prod. Cristi Puiu. (2001).
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons [source]
Doing History in Public 
