Tales From The Golden Age - Review

[Detomah]

THIS comic and darkly ironic look at Romania under the Ceaucescu regime uses five urban myths from this so called ‘golden age’ to show the idiocies of daily life in a dictatorship, and the importance of humour in coping with its consequences.

The project was conceived and scripted by Cristian Mungiu (Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days), who also directs one of the episodes. The others are mostly directed by newcomers, and the film is presented as a collaborative effort.

Wonderfully constructed and subtly linked, all the stories play out with efficiency and style. It’s a mark of how good the films are that you hesitate in engaging with each new ‘episode’ pondering about the events of the previous story. The opening film is superb and probably the highlight, although none of the subsequent ones are a let-down in anyway.

There is a dark humour throughout which comes out at inappropriate moments making it all the more entertaining. Obviously, there is a part of you that wonders what happens to the characters once the film ends (firing squads would probably be setting their sights even before the credits roll) but you never get a sense of melancholy.

It’s a great touch that the films remain anonymous in as much as we never know which director made which film. Mungiu’s motifs may well give his film away but it would be a brave (and unnecessarily picky) critic who would track down the filmmakers and their respective films.

Things get off to a great start as a small town prepares for the arrival of high-ranking party officials. As they begin to relax, they end up getting drunk and making a terrible decision which leaves them all at sea with the clock ticking.

All the situations sound far more serious than they actually are, although they all remain sinister to some extent. This makes for an entertaining combination with some great performances cranking up the tension throughout.

The tone between stories varies but not to the extent that it distracts or even deviates from your chain of thought. You become engrossed and enchanted by the seemingly mundane lives of the characters all of whom have warmth to them which makes you root for a positive outcome.

You get the feeling that these urban myths existed throughout Eastern Europe and with the influx of films from this region in recent years, the locations feel strangely familiar.

In fact, the term ‘myth’ is probably too far a stretch, as these stories are more like urban legends, and I’m sure some of them would not be out of place in the UK or even America.

A great slice of intelligent and entertaining European cinema.

In Romanian, with subtitles

Certificate: 15
Running time: 131mins
UK Release Date: October 30, 2009



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