Bacalaureat

Seen at the Film Fest Ghent 2016 (website: filmfestival.be/en). In the last four years, I've seen several depressing movies about corruption in former Communist countries. It seems a popular topic in the area, as can be readily derived from noteworthy examples like Durak/The Fool (Bykov 2014), Dolgaya Schastlivaya Zhizn/A Long And Happy Life (Khlebnikov 2013), and Leviathan (Zvyagintsev 2014). Even though the movie at hand follows suit on the same path, it however winds up being not that depressing as the others. Especially the final scenes brought some silver lining for the country's future, albeit that I'm not so sure it is the actual message that the film makers try to drive home.

Anyway, the running time is more than 2 hours, but I could not spot any boring or redundant scene. Everything included in the script was necessary and useful, emphasizing how convoluted the tangled web became as woven by the various protagonists. It made abundantly clear that one step causes the next step, and so on and so on, until the point that no backpedaling is possible anymore. In other words, the original policy of our lead character Romeo may not have brought him wealth or influence in the past, yet his route was straightforward and devoid of complex deals deserving counter deals to make the circle round.

The threesome family seemed a happy family from the outset, which proved gradually untrue in small steps. The case was not that their problems were unnatural or far-fetched, therefore it took its time for the cracks to become visible. Progress developed slowly but steadily. It was a surprise, for me that is, that there was some sort of resolution in the end. It countered the assumed morale of this movie (my assumption), that there is no middle road in corruption: either one steers clear of it, or one gets involved in complex arrangements from which one cannot get loose once started.

All in all, two hours well spent while watching my favorite theme develop on screen, at the same time asking myself what I should have done in similar circumstances. Such thought provoking plots are very welcome, mostly also carrying an existential takeaway message hidden under an exercise for the viewer. We were taught that Honesty Is The Best Policy, but the plot of this movie lets you get doubts underway.

In a small Romanian town, Romeo (Adrien Titeini) is a local doctor who is hell-bent on ensuring his teenage daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) excels in her final high-school exams in order to be accepted at a university in the U.K. He is even willing to cross legal and ethical boundaries to make this happen after Eliza faces a crisis shortly before her exams.

Director/writer Christian Mungiu seems to have a knack for courageously exposing his home country's culture of corruption and the moral dilemmas this causes for average citizens - especially when these folks are in a quandary and "taking the high road" would not likely get them what they want and need. In "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days", the story revolved around arranging an illegal abortion during the Communist era; in "Graduation" (which takes place in the current time), it involves Romeo's insistence that his only child must leave corrupt Romania in order to have a decent life and future.

"Graduation" begins quite well in introducing the audience to interesting characters and how they respond to the corruption in their midst. The middle part is even more intriguing as Romeo's moral compass goes so downhill that he is becoming what he once condemned. It is evident he's acted this way before but not at this level.

There are two key scenes in this section in which Romeo defends his actions. One involves an argument with his wife; the other with Eliza. During the dispute with his wife (played by Lia Bugnar), he argues how much she benefited from his smaller moral slips in the past even if she wouldn't have acted the same way herself. His argument is so convincing that even the viewer could agree with him in a very uncomfortable way.

The final segment does injustice to the beginning and the middle. It seems to go in various unnecessary directions and fails to continue the momentum built earlier. But "Graduation" is still a film worth seeing. It includes universal themes such as well-meaning parents over-planning their children's future plus a challenge to the belief that "the grass is always greener" somewhere else. And of course, the saying "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" is well played out in the narrative. - dbamateurcritic

In order to let his daughter escape a corrupt country, the lead character in 'Bacalaureat' has to immerse himself in the corrupt system he despises. That's the central paradox and the moral dilemma in this film. Doctor Aldea, a surgeon in a small town in Romania, has one goal in his life: to let his daughter escape to 'civilisation'. This goal has come within reach when she is selected for a scholarship in Britain, provided she passes the exams with excellent results. When she is violently attacked a few days before the exams, there is a serious risk she won't pass the test. So the doctor decides to pull some strings.

But he has to cope with the moral consequences afterwards. Is the father still able to look his daughter in the eye, after having told her all her life that corruption is wrong? And what about his wife, who has made a point of never lowering her standards of integrity, and has paid for her righteousness with a low-paid and uninteresting job? Besides, how can he defend high moral standards when he is conducting an affair with a much younger woman? The doctor defends his moral integrity: the attack is an unforeseen emergency, and so exceptions to the rule are permitted. But does he believe so himself? Things are made more complicated because of his daughter's boyfriend, and her own doubts about the need to go to Britain.

The film looks at all sides of moral integrity, and doesn't offer straightforward solutions. In fact, a lot is left unanswered, as if the director wants to say that things are never very clear, and there is always room for doubt.

Apart from posing moral questions, the film also offers a fine view into modern Romanian society. 'You'll scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours' seems to be the national motto. The film offers little hope of improvement: the only character opposing this system is the doctor's wife. But she looks utterly depressed and, as the doctor points out, has only been able to keep her high moral standards because she could rely on his position.

Director Cristian Mungiu is able to weave the many different story lines nicely together, although some scenes don't seem to be related to the rest of the story. Probably he intentionally doesn't want to spell everything out. Life itself is sometimes ambiguous, so why shouldn't a movie be?

Graduation, by Cristian Mungiu reviewed by NC Weil

This 2016 Romanian film by the director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, spans the time between a young woman's high school final exams and her graduation. Her father, a doctor, and mother, a librarian, though estranged (he sleeps on the couch and has a lover), both dote on their daughter, and their highest concern is her well-being. The girl is an excellent student, but the day before her exams she is attacked by a would-be rapist - in the scuffle her wrist is broken, but her violation goes far deeper than bones in a cast.

Her father, a precise, methodical, and - yes - kind man, is determined to see her go to university in the UK where she has been offered a scholarship (contingent on high exam scores). He will do anything to make that plan happen. The assault is one more reason - Romania, for him, is a dead end. He and his wife are stuck there, but for their daughter, it is not too late. She must leave.

The film opens with a rock shattering a window of their ground-floor apartment - the doctor certainly has a point about the benefits of living elsewhere - and he has labored to give her the chance to escape. But after the assault she gets cold feet.

Strip away the differences between Romania's culture and our own, and the film boils down to a father wanting what he is convinced is best for his near-adult daughter, with his intentions overriding her own desires and distractions. Graduation is about leaving one phase of life to move into the next. The impossibility of planting your own experience directly into the heart and mind of a grown child is on painful display here - you have learned the hard way what you should have done, but she, rationally or not, has to make her own choices.

For a parent, relinquishing control can mean one's life has truly been wasted - you didn't save yourself, and you can't save her either. But she's no longer yours to control - to insist on obedience is to keep her dependent, unable to be any kind of adult. In the end, that stunting is probably a worse trap than whatever limits her bad decisions impose. Mungiu's sympathy for all his characters forces us to recognize that everyone, no matter how corrupt or self-serving, is just trying to make the best of the life they're stuck in. Futility outranks evil in his compromised worldview.

Fist of all, Romanian movies are the most unique movies I've ever seen, so they deserve to be watched and talked about among those who watch. Bacalaureat (Graduation) is an example how you can make a masterpiece without extraordinary script, how you can see the very best of acting without some special dialogues, effects, etc. For those who are admirers of Hollywood this is not a perfect thing to watch. There is nothing special in this movie, nothing extraordinary, uncommon... However Bacalaureat is one of the most beautiful thing I've seen during the last few years. Romanians should be teachers to the other directors. I'm not sure if Romanians should say "thanks" to communism and isolation during the last century, I am not sure whether this is their way to express the feelings that they've had in the past. I am sure that this movie is a diamond among overambitious titles.