Irony and comedy come hand in hand in this five episode collage of life under Nicolai Ceausescu’s communist rule. What transpires in Cristian Mungiu‘s and his fellow co-conspirators’ Tales From the Golden Age is a comical, sincere nostalgic look back at how Romanians were able to survive and actually tolerate the system. The five episodes consist of: a village waiting for an official state visit and then getting the shaft, a state controlled newspaper making an embarrassing front page gaffe, a delivery man who pays dearly for his yearnings, a family wrestling with how to not “squeal” and finally an air quality scheme where a pair of young people do the equivalent to stealing hub caps. Like 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, this is about how people manage to survive and do so in groups fearful of the iron hand. Sidenote: The film is directed by five filmmakers, but so far what filmmaker made which short is being kept a secret. Sounds exactly like how the people protected one another from the state!
This is part of the pair of Romanian films offerings in the Un Certain Regard section (Police, Adjectiv), and highly recommend seeing both films probably in the context of a film festival this autum. Coming soon: My full review.
