Erwarte nicht zu viel vom Ende der Welt

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (2024). Radu Jude's caustic ramble about the state of mind of the Romanian public. Jude's film is intentionally messy and, seemingly, disorganized, but the filmmaker has a lot on his mind.

The main protagonist is Angela Raducani (Ilinca Manolache; quite remarkable) a production assistant on a safety video being produced locally for an Austrian client. She's required to drive around all over the area, seemingly the only P. A. on the production. She interviews accident victims who are 'auditioning' to be the spokesperson for the industrial short. Jude intersperses extended clips from a 1981 Romanian film (ANGELA MOVES ON) about a taxi driver also named Angela. Jude sets up the contrast by saying his film is in 'conversation' with the earlier one. The two Angelas meet when the P. A is doing her vetting interviews. The older Angela is played by the same actress from the earlier film (Dorina Lazar).

Jude uses various film and digital techniques (including aspect ratio) throughout. Slow motion, freeze frames and other tricks of the trade. Angela blows off steam by adopting a male alter ego - Bobita that she posts on social media, complete with cellphone camera filters. "Bobita" is an extreme misogynist in the Andrew Tate mold spouting the most vile rants imaginable. The movie is leisurely paced, but never dull. One fun side story involves Director Uwe Boll (playing himself) who is in town shooting a low budget sci-fi flick; Boll is introduced thusly: "He beats people up!"

Jude's themes coalesce, more or less, in the final hour. The great German actress Nina Hoss (TAR, PHOENIX) arrives in Bucharest playing the Austrian producer, Doris Goethe. Angela picks her up and drives her to a hotel. The next day is the shoot which Jude films as a remarkable 40 minute single take. The victim's family (including the now elderly taxi driver Angela) is placed at the scene of his unfortunate accident on a dreary, rainy afternoon. Of course, the company responsible doesn't really want to hear from the man (Ovidiu Pirsan) as much as spread their propaganda using the 'victims' as human props. As the family sit in a dank alley in a light rain, they are told what to say and do over the phone by Doris as she sits comfortably in her well apportioned hotel.

Jude is fully committed to his vision of Romania as a sad sack society. There's a mention of road so dangerous that citizens have put up crosses for those that have perished because of the government's indifference (it's a long montage). The nation is now 'free' from the Iron Curtain, but, it's leaders, including the much reviled Nicolae Ceausescu, have left deep wounds in the Romanian psyche. Being an EU member has only magnified the country's status on the lowest rung of that ladder. The two Angelas may represent two different generations, but, are their circumstance that much different? They each believe the "End of the World" is happening - and don't expect it to be a happy one.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD is currently streaming on Mubi and is available for rental.

Angela, the overworked and underpaid production assistant, drives through chaotic Bucharest, trying to film castings for a commercial. Completely stressed out and exhausted, she desperately seeks a few minutes of peace, but her boss keeps calling, telling her to drink a strong coffee or a Red Bull and to keep working. The ringtone on Angela's phone when work calls is "Ode to Joy" - the EU anthem.

A film that couldn't be more cynical. It's an authentic critique of society and capitalism, wrapped in bold, crude situational humor. The West-especially Austria, the country that in recent years blocked Romania from joining the Schengen Area-is constantly ridiculed.

It's not common to see a Romanian film that is so critical of the present, as most tend to condemn the past under Ceausescu and embrace capitalism without much questioning. Radu Jude shows that those days are likely over, as things haven't improved much for Romanians. Quite the opposite. Nature is being destroyed for private companies, cities are drowning in traffic, intellectuals are leaving the country, and poverty is everywhere.

This dark comedy is, for me, a highlight of the year. It makes you think, but most of all, it makes you laugh out loud.

Some may find it discouraging to look upon the world with a robustly cynical outlook, yet, given prevailing conditions in the world today, it may sometimes be unavoidable, an attribute reflected in many contexts, including art and cinema. And that's just what Romanian writer-director Radu Jude has done in his latest feature outing, a biting, darkly satirical comedy-drama that lays bare many of the everyday frustrations that his countrymen experience in areas like politics, corruption and economic opportunities. The film tells this story through the experiences of Angela Raducani (Ilinca Manolache), an overworked, underpaid, sleep-deprived movie production assistant as she struggles to make it through her daily work routine, an unappreciated effort not unlike that thrust upon many contemporary Romanians. To compensate for the tedium of her career and to let off some considerable pent-up steam, Angela makes short videos of her own featuring a foul-mouthed, sexually provocative male alter-ego, Bobitja, who swears like a sailor and describes explicit erotic encounters that would make a porn star blush. She also wrestles with the many self-serving demands of her arrogant Austrian corporate sponsors and a bloated Romanian bureaucracy that proves ineffectual in resolving property ownership issues related to her family's cemetery plots. Moreover, the picture draws uncanny parallels in the living and working conditions experienced by the nation's present-day residents with those who lived under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in the 1980s, presented here through intercut thematically linked film clips from the 1982 Romanian melodrama "Angela merge mai departe" ("Angela Moves Forward"), the story of a taxi driver whose circumstances mirror those of the beleaguered PA. It all makes for quite an intriguing and engaging mix of story elements, one the holds viewer attention well for about two-thirds of the release, especially in its deliciously bawdy, ribald humor. However, with a 2:43:00 runtime, it becomes somewhat trying as a comedy (and as a movie overall), serving up an excess of almost everything. Unlike comparably long offerings such as "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), which manage to successfully sustain their humor for such a lengthy duration, this effort starts getting repetitive, running out of gas to keep propelling it forward, especially in the somewhat exasperating final half-hour. Like Jude's previous release, "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn" ("Barbardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc") (2021), this outing definitely could have benefitted from some judicious editing, particularly in its endless footage of the protagonist driving through heavy Bucharest traffic. To the filmmaker's credit, "End of the World" deserves kudos for its irreverence and its ambitious inventiveness and willingness to try the untried, but this is yet another example of a project where the creator fails to kill his darlings, an undertaking that could have been accomplished successfully in lobbing off about 20 minutes of extraneous material, especially in the closing moments. This one is worth a look if you're willing to be patient with it, as that's essential to make your way through all the way to the end. But, if you don't go in with that attitude, you might be expecting too much from the end of the film.

I live in Romania and this is the most acurate and realistic movie I've seen in my life and I watched over 2000 movies. I truly hope that life outside of Romania has another perspectives and values but I suspect that this toxic recipe is applied in all the "modern" countries of the world.

The movie captures in a perfect way the hoax of a "modern" life, lived in a big city. Deppresion, anxiety, regrets, fake smiles, competition, survival, degeneration and destruction. The parralel drawn between the modern days presented in black and white and the communist times presented in colour mark a huge contrast between an organic way of life and this jungle we dare to call civilisation today.

A huge masterpiece and an extremely harsh and realistic account of today's "society." Anyone who is more bothered by swearing than by corruption, ignorance and obedience is by definition a modern slave. This is the true message of the movie. It's time to stop exchanging fake smiles for money and status and start being human again.

After deducting one star for over-the-top vulgarity, much of that from protagonist Angela's TikTok alter ego Bobita; and one more star for being way too long; this left eight stars to work with, and the film earned them all. My first impression of Angela was dim, but she was just a tough, bright cookie doing her own thing - mostly driving, apparently -- in rough circumstances. Terrific acting.

Can't say how well the "movie within a movie" device worked. I understand it was to provide both contrast and context, but after awhile it became intrusive and repetitive, like prolonged scenes of Angela's gum-chewing during relentless drives, and a wholly gratuitous sequence of highway fatality crosses. The scene at the end filming Ovidiu and his family is especially sharp, with quite a few lessons hidden in there.

Not exactly sure why, but the film overall reminded me of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria ... not for any obvious reasons, but a similar tone.

The ending was abrupt but appropriate and satisfying. Closing credits are wacky, not something I often see. Major credit too goes to whomever did the English subtitles: they were spot-on, very nuanced.

Not too sure about how it makes Bucharest look, though.