‘Kontinental ’25’ review: Radu Jude returns after winning the Golden Bear

Dir. Radu Jude. Romania 2025. 109mins

Romania’s Radu Jude is a kind of uncommon film-makers for whom the phrase “anticipate the surprising” may really imply one thing. It definitely applies to his Berlinale competitors entry Kontinental ’75, as this story of a guilt-ridden bailiff ostensibly resembles typical social realism however then broadens its scope fascinatingly, foregrounding satirical intent and a mischievous diploma of verbal overload.

Will greater than fulfill Jude followers 

Whereas not as formally playful as his final fiction function Do Not Count on Too A lot From the Finish of the World or 2021 Berlin Golden Bear winner Unhealthy Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, Kontinental ’75 nonetheless exhibits Jude’s socio-political antennae characteristically a-twitch as he scans the up to date temper of each Romania and (because the title suggests) Europe total. That includes a terrific central efficiency by Eszter Tompa, each comedian and affecting, the movie will greater than fulfill Jude followers but in addition deliver reassurance to anybody who was worrying that European artwork cinema had misplaced its combative spirit.

The setting is Cluj in Transylvania, one among Romania’s wealthier cities the place a homeless aged man, Ion Glanetasu (Gabriel Spahiu) salvages plastic bottles, approaches individuals at pavement cafes and customarily rages on the world. Considerably disrupting the impact of on a regular basis normality are Glanetasu’s encounters with a number of large mannequin dinosaurs (precise sights in an area Dinopark) and a splendidly testy contretemps with a robotic canine.

Glanetasu returns to an deserted boiler room the place he’s at the moment crashing, however receives a go to from bailiff Orsulya Ionescu (Tompa), accompanied by gendarmes, who serve him discover to go away.Orsulya is definitely extra sympathetic than her position suggests, having pulled strings to permit Glanetasu to remain for longer. Even now that he’s obliged to go away instantly, she permits him further time to assemble his belongings – in the meantime explaining to the gendarmes that an actual property agency plans to demolish the constructing and erect a boutique lodge, the titular Kontinental.

However Orsulya’s act of generosity has surprising penalties – and, because the movie’s highlight turns to her, she goes into an agonised tailspin. Though she is formally cleared of guilt, this delicate, considerate lady can’t assist musing on questions of private duty and ethics, by which, as a former regulation instructor, she has a selected curiosity. In the meantime, native press goal her as a ‘Hungarian ethnic’ harassing harmless Romanians – such tensions, stemming from Transylvanian historical past, nonetheless apparently a sore level within the area.

Different those who Orsulya talks to disclose their very own prejudices and intolerance: an official lets slip his antisemitic views; her buddy Daria (Oana Mardare) confesses to conflicted revulsion in the direction of homeless individuals; whereas Orsulya’s mom (Annamaria Biluska) rankles at her liberalism and angrily accuses her of catching “the Romanian at all times complaining virus’”. Whereas her husband and kids head off to a Greek vacation, Orsulya meets up with Fred (a really droll Adonis Tanta), her ex-student in Roman Regulation.

Kontinental ’75 may be very a lot of a chunk with the general Jude undertaking – of taking the socio-cultural temperature of his nation and, past that, of twenty first century European  capitalism. One shock second of ribaldry aside, it’s neither as scabrous nor as encyclopedically scattershot as Do Not Count on…­  However it’s one among his extra discursively dense movies, notably within the long-take dialogue between Orsulya and Daria and within the later session with a suave however forbidding Orthodox priest (Serban Pavlu).

In the meantime the geography of Cluj and environs has a strongly concrete presence, with Marius Panduru’s impressively polished iPhone cinematography providing an in depth mapping of town each in its urbanely presentable glory, historic and touristic, and within the drab performance of its extra mundane corners.