Romania
R.M.N. review - ethnic cleansing in rural RomaniaThursday, 21 September 2023
If you think we’ve got culture wars, then welcome to Transylvania. This rugged Romanian region is home to a bewildering overlap of ethnicities and tongues – Hungarian, a bit of German and Romanian itself – such that Cristian Mungiu’s new movie... Read more... |
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn review - viral venom in BucharestWednesday, 01 December 2021
Though sexual hypocrisy in modern-day Romania is the ostensible target of Bad Lack Banging or Loony Porn – a satirical drama that enfolds a scattershot polemic – Radu Jude’s tenth film is broadly concerned with the nation’s all-enveloping post-... Read more... |
Berlinale 2021: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn review – cheeky, timely and very provocativeThursday, 04 March 2021
The Romanian director Radu Jude invariably serves spicy satire that challenges his compatriots to face historical crimes and present failings. The latest is an erudite and daft, raunchy and knockabout, endlessly provocative film that, for sake of... Read more... |
Collective review - waging war on corruptionWednesday, 02 December 2020
It was around the time of the 14th century Black Death that the word “corruption” – from the Latin corruptus, the past participle of corrumpere, “to mar, bribe, destroy” – was first associated with putrefaction. Moral corruption becomes inextricably... Read more... |
The Whistlers review – a smart, self-aware noir concerning a crooked copThursday, 07 May 2020
Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has made a career crafting perceptive and cerebral examinations of his native country. From his 2006 debut 12:08 to Bucharest to The Treasure, they were cerebral films that powerfully... Read more... |
Denk, LPO, Vänskä, RFH review - 200 years of joy and sorrowSaturday, 29 February 2020
Three works two centuries apart, two of them rarities, with 100/200 years between each: that's no guarantee for programming success, and no way to fill a hall (though the London Philharmonic Orchestra admin deserves a good medal for the intricacy of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Everybody in Our FamilyFriday, 03 May 2019
The packaging suggests that Radu Jude’s Everybody In Our Family (Toată lumea din familia noastră) is a dark romp, one source describing it as a “chaotic yet endearing comedy chamber piece”. And no one would dispute the sheer craft on display, Jude’s... Read more... |
Lupu, Philharmonia, Järvi, RFH review - concerto magical in parts, symphony stupendousMonday, 04 February 2019
Pianists most often cite Radu Lupu alongside Martha Argerich and Grigory Sokolov as the greatest. So it was hardly surprising to see so many top musicians in a packed audience, buzzing with expectation for the 73-year-old Romanian's most recent UK... Read more... |
Octets, Wigmore Hall review - Heath Quartet and star friends effervesceSaturday, 16 December 2017
To compose a masterpiece in your teens is rare enough; to choose the most elaborate form in chamber music, an octet for eight strings, ensures a peculiar kind of immortality. George Enescu, a still-underestimated genius described by protege Yehudi... Read more... |
Oedipe, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Enescu's masterpiece glorious and completeMonday, 25 September 2017
It’s official: Romanian master George Enescu’s four-act Greek epic lives and breathes as a work of transcendent genius. It took last year’s Royal Opera production to lead us further along the path established by the magnificent EMI studio recording... Read more... |
Geta Bratescu, Camden Arts CentreThursday, 13 April 2017
What a delight to be introduced to an artist whom you have never heard of and whose work is inspirational. Born in Romania in 1926, Geta Brătescu spent much of her life enduring the Soviet occupation of her country, then the repressive regime of... Read more... |
Graduation review - 'Cannes winner is a bleak Romanian masterpiece'Thursday, 30 March 2017
A decade ago Romanian director Cristian Mungiu took the Palme d’Or at Cannes for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a gruelling abortion drama set in the dying days of the Ceauşescu dictatorship. The cold intensity of that film made it a key work in... Read more... |
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