“I don’t see any provocation in the film. Even the sex scene is pretty banal,” said Romanian director Radu Jude at the press conference on Friday, shortly after he learned that his film “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” won him gold Bären won the Berlinale 2021. The opening scene of Judes Satire keeps what the title promises: a very realistic-looking, self-made porn video – definitely not for prudish people. But explicit content is available everywhere on the internet, says the filmmaker, and we shouldn’t be shocked by consensual sex. What is actually obscene is society’s hypocrisy towards widespread prejudice and hatred.
From sexism to fascism
The film tells the story of a teacher – the woman in the sex tape – who is about to lose her job when the video begins to circulate in her school. But “Bad Luck Banking or Loony Porn” is definitely more than just a sex tape; he denounces the direction in which Romanian society is moving.
The experimental narrative first takes the viewer through the streets of Bucharest in a documentary sequence, where most people are wearing a mask. Incidentally, it is the only film in the competition that includes the pandemic in its story. The camera lingers on details that symbolize Romania’s post-communist consumer society: from cheesy billboards with bodybuilders to SUVs taking over the sidewalks.
The second part of the film presents a “short dictionary of anecdotes, signs and wonders”, which uses black humor to define various terms that have to do with sexism, corruption, racism, anti-Semitism and fascism – including Romania’s involvement in the Holocaust Respectively.
DW culture editor Elizabeth Grenier
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“Children are the political prisoners of their parents” – this quote from Jean-Paul Sartre appears in between and could also serve as a subheading for the third part of the film, in which the history teacher faces the pious parents of her class in a sham trial.
The Berlinale – a political festival
This year the competition jury consisted of six filmmakers, all of whom have already won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. With the selection of these jury members, the Berlin Film Festival confirmed its reputation of being the most political festival of the “Big Three” alongside Cannes and Venice. Because these six filmmakers have also won their Golden Bears with provocative political works in recent years.
Among them the Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who commented on the death penalty in his home country with “There Is No Evil” 2020. In 2019 Nadav Lapid won with his film “Definitions”, a political satire about a young Israeli who is looking for his identity after his military service in Paris. The year before, the Golden Bear went to Romanian director Adina Pintilie for “Touch Me Not”, an experimental film about body politics.
Non-political films came away empty-handed
Also in the competition were the film “Petite Maman” by the critically acclaimed French director Celine Sciamma and “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” by Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze. Both films use magical realism to express the poetry of human experiences, but without referring to the gloomy state of the world. The works were among the favorites of many critics, but the jury left them empty-handed.
For this she decided on a film that she describes as “artfully worked out” and at the same time “intelligent and childish”. The strip conjures up the zeitgeist, “slaps him” and “challenges him to a duel”. He attacks the audience, evokes opposition and does not allow anyone to “keep a safe distance”.
It remains to be seen whether the audience will rise to this challenge.
Adaptation: Sven Töniges
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