With some effort in three receptions watched the film by the Romanian director Radu Jude “Bravo!” / Aferim!, 2015. I was prompted to take this step, as is often the case, high ratings of friends and numerous positive responses. The title of the film is already sarcastic, especially when you watch the movie. I read that the word Aferim! is borrowed from the Turkish language and means, as it were, a sarcastic “approval” of something that does not really deserve approval. That's right. The film is set in the first third of the 19th century in Wallachia, Romania, and as the credits show, the film is based on real events. Boyarin Iordake hires police officer Kostandin and his gendarme son Ionitsa to catch his runaway gypsy slave Karfin. And so we watch the search, the capture, and what happened next, all accompanied by constant dialogue and sometimes monologues by Kostandin and some others, especially the priest they met along the way. From them we can see a picture in which there is an extremely hostile attitude, even hatred, of representatives of different nationalities towards each other, in addition, we learn that the Roma at that time were slaves to the Romanians, they were not considered people at all and were called only ravens. We cannot say that there is only one “speech of hatred”, sometimes we see faint glimpses of reason and even, perhaps, humanity, but all this is so weak that it does not exert any special influence on what is happening. For example, Mr. suggests not to execute the escaped slave, since the culprit of what happened was the boyar’s wife, but simply beat him, a very “noble” gesture. It is disgusting to look at how people are treated, and not only at slaves, the policeman kisses the hands and the boyar, and his wife, whom he kind of respectfully interrogates, does not consider the boyar and the policeman to be a person. The ending is disgusting, but the main character calls on his son, who in between made a weak attempt to persuade his father to let Karfin go, forget all this and promises him a successful future. I must say that the film made a rather painful impression on me, although the intention of the director was clear to me, but it was unpleasant to watch and listen to all this, although at times it sounded very relevant, such speeches are heard now. Some note, however, some “gallows humor”, with this we can agree, some characters (the same boyars with completely stupid huge hats on their heads) look ridiculous, although humor still I do not consider it, it is like caricatures. It is believed that it is shot in the style of Westerns, although I do not think so, although yes, they ride horses all the time, there is a similarity in this, but not in the nature of the events. In short, I’m not sure that I can recommend it to everyone to watch, although the film was a success and received several awards, was nominated for an Oscar.
The creative work of the talented young Romanian director Radu Jude is little known to the domestic audience. It is all the more disappointing that his most famous (thanks to the Berlin “Bear”) work is hung by genre labels, causing complete bewilderment.
How perverse is the modern viewer’s concept of comedy, if in a purely dramatic canvas the bitterest irony is perceived by him as a comedic component of action? What's Western about? Even without attachment to the place (Valachia, the south of modern Romania), what features of the western do film critics find here? The journey of horse riders with a gun behind their belts in the realities of the depths of the 19th century? Western still implies, if not a conflict of cultures, then at least armed struggle, and primarily according to the law of the jungle. In Jude, on the contrary, the entire narrative is built in the space of the unshakable way of life of the heroes of the film, and the “humiliated and insulted” here are not allowed to open even their mouths without the appropriate permission of representatives of the higher castes. And what “modernization of the Romanian princes” is being discussed in the synopsis on “KP” is completely unclear.
One should not pay attention to labels that do not correspond to the content, if it were only someone’s personal inattention or subjectivity of evaluation. Unfortunately, the tendency to perceive pictures of human ignorance, malice and cruelty, often only entertaining, has now acquired a mass character. In the plowed (and depleted) field of cinema, this sad phenomenon reflects the existence not only of countless meaningless “cripples”, but also films that hide behind the artistic production and pseudophilosophical ideas for the sake of demonstrating the same vices for commercial purposes. Such carefully made, well-dressed, outwardly smeared with “psychologicalism” and “philosophy”, but in its essence completely empty works like “comedy westerns” of the Coen brothers or the Zellner brothers, just accustom the viewer to a joking perception of the most disgusting features of human character.
In contrast to such fair cheaps (cheap is not on the mastered budget, because here it is just the opposite), Jude creates not so much a soulful historical sketch as a timeless philosophical parable: a parable about the continuity of generations of current and future, their responsibility for what they did, the conflict of established order and conscience. In his subsequent works, the director will reveal these lines more openly, bringing to light now very “awkward” moments from the recent historical past of Europe, but it is in Bravo! that an attempt is made to understand the nature of spiritual human blindness.
The picture of Jude is not flaunted by the fashionable festival “sen”; one cannot say that the entire path of the viewer accompanying the heroes of the film is lined with barbed straw. Deprived of moralizing and dramatic affectation, just as it is devoid of color and musical accompaniment, not speculating on the contrast of landscape and dramatic action, created without portrait angles, Joudet’s painting is unwittingly perceived as a documentary chronicle shot by an outside observer. Only fragments of this chronicle are so easily intertwined with each other that they make up an indivisible canvas, where each scene is created by an artist imperceptibly masquerading as a participant in the action.
In turn, the actions of this narrative, stroke by stroke, create a picture not only and not so much of concrete slavery as of total slavery. A gypsy is a slave of anyone; a pope is a slave of ignorance; a lawyer is a slave of law and duty; a walking girl is a slave of poverty and human vice; a boyar is a slave of the body; a boyar is a slave of his malice and public opinion. The physical slavery of some is a reflection of the slavery of others. But no matter how terrible slavery of the first type, the most severe forms of slavery are those that imply a formal choice in making responsible decisions.
Mentioned in the film Aristotle, “who taught Alexander the Great to read the Psalm”, belongs to the saying: “For the most part, the future is like the past.” Whether this maxim applies to the comparison of the spiritual world of modern man and the Wallach of the 19th century is up to the viewer to decide. Finding this film “comedy western”, such a perception will only confirm the correctness of the ancient Greek philosopher without unnecessary evidence.
“Aferim” ("Bravo) by the Romanian director Radu Jude, who received the prize for best director at the Berlin International Film Festival, is certainly not the heir to the Romanian new wave, nor Kusturica, nor even the German parable “It is difficult to be a god”, and even more so there is little western. Most importantly, this film is not about the XIX century, not about the search for a runaway gypsy, but about the XXI century.
“Aferim” is a film-mockery of politically correct Europe, echoing primarily with “Borat”, especially, and both are variations on the theme of the road movie.
Throughout the film, we hear similar thoughts:
“The giant Jews multiplied, but each time they grew smaller. These are now Jews. That's why Jews hate people, Christians. That is why they killed our Lord, Jesus Christ.
- Better a Jew without a beard than a beard without a Jew. What are they doing in Moldova? Jews all over Moldova ride in their carriage
But there is nothing wrong with that.
- but the crews are Orthodox Christians. -
- I don't believe it, Father, that's what Muscovites did to our peasants. In the war of 1827, General Zheltukhin forced them to drag carts.
Every tribe exists on Earth for something.
The Jews are for fraud.
Turks - for curses
We Romanians for love and honor and Christian martyrdom
And every nation has its own habits.
Jews read a lot.
The Greeks talk a lot.
The Turks have many wives.
The Germans smoke a lot.
Hungarians eat a lot.
They sing and drink a lot.
English people think a lot.
The French are very interested in fashion.
Armenians are idle a lot.
The Circassians have a lot of laces on their clothes.
Italians eat a lot of donuts.
Serbs are a lot of grinding,
And gypsies get hit a lot. Gypsies must be slaves because Noah cursed them.
And so on and so forth.
The result was simply a triumph of racism, nationalism, misogyny, Orthodoxy, homophobia, chastity, obscurantism, clericalism, anti-Semitism and despotism over liberalism and political correctness. Another parallel: Cervantes' Don Quixote. But if the knight of the sad image wanted to protect the humiliated and insulted, Theodore Cobra and Ionian, rotten the poor, deceive the defenseless, run away at the first danger, have no compassion and serve Satan himself.
Radu Jude, wearing the mask of innocence itself, makes a film about times immemorial and therefore receives indulgence. He blows in the face of left-liberal Berlin, and bribes from it are smooth.
The funny thing is that Jude mocks Lotyan, Petrovich, Kusturica and Budulai. The cinema of the 20th century glorified the Gypsies as thieves, but freedom-loving pilgrims of dusty roads, and Jude depicts the Gypsies as cattle, forced, miserable slaves kissing the hand of the last boss, who pokes them in the face.
The crown of the film was a terrible bloody scene that will amaze your imagination.
9 out of 10
When it comes to Romanian cinema, two names come to mind: Christian Mundiu and Christi Puyu. Their works repeatedly receive prizes of the Cannes and Berlin film festivals, and receive them deservedly, these directors masterfully manage to reveal the main themes and motives in the lives of their compatriots through the prism of social problems of modern Romania. And in 2015, at the Berlin Film Festival, another Romanian director, Radu Jude, announced himself. But only he made a film not about how people live in his native country now, but how they lived 200 years ago.
Two lawyers Constandin and Ionice, father and son, go in search of a fugitive slave-Gypsy, along the way meeting priests, old women, fish traders and other people who inhabited Wallachia at that time. The plot is perfect for a dashing western, and if the film was shot by Tarantino, the viewer would expect a sea of blood, half-hour shootouts and endless dialogue about how shaorma is called in Istanbul. But the film was shot by a representative of the “new Romanian wave”, so, of course, nothing is worth waiting. Although the picture is attributed to the Western genre, this binding, in my opinion, is very relative, the film is practically devoid of stylistic features inherent in this genre. Father and son meet no difficulties in their path, and from the very beginning the viewer feels the hopelessness of the situation of a fugitive slave who is destined to be caught. And, it would probably be exhausting to watch the intrigueless progress of the main characters in the hills and forests, if not for the continuous ironic exchange of worldly wisdom (sometimes quite obscene) with those same priests, old women, fish traders and other people who inhabited Wallachia at that time. It is from these random meetings that the picture of the life of that time, its general moods, is formed.
And here it is worth noting the subtle directorial work of Radu Jude. It does not dramatize, unnecessarily ironic, does not place accents, but simply gives the viewer the freedom to observe the story, to notice its every detail. After all, these details directly affect the actions of the heroes. Constandin once said, “This world, whatever you do, will remain as it is.” We live as we can, not as we will.” Is he right or not? Everyone will judge in their own way. Radu Jude refuses any judgment, leading his heroes to the inevitable cruel finale, strengthening their hopeless mood. And this detachment is similar to Jude with his more eminent filmmakers.
However, despite the excellent work of the director, cameraman and production designer, despite the universal question of the fate of the common man in the grip of history, the picture may be too specific for the Russian audience, who may not like the life of the Romanian people. But if you still want to spend almost 2 hours immersed in the life of Wallachia of the 19th century, then you can not find a better film than Bravo!
Ethno-Western "Bravo!" Romanian director Radu Jude involuntarily makes you remember those times when shooting a truly national European cinema was fashionable. With all that ethnic color, which is embedded in each frame, the filmmaker does not try to flirt with cardboard flatness, mask sensitive themes for long pauses and sleep-drenched camera drives through the piercing fields, but honestly and simply tells a complex story from the not so distant past of his country. The bold irony lies in the title, because in the course of the action, the characters do not commit a single act for which one could get such admiring feedback, while clearly following their moral principles, determined by the time in which they lived. In this time, in a strange way, the quoting of the Book of Ecclesiastes, the memories of Aristotle with Alexander and slavery, reflections on the eternal and fundamental racism, the charm of the virginally pure outback with the abomination of many people living in it are harmonized.
The simplicity of the story, told in Westerns for dozens of times, where the lawyers (in this case, the gray-haired gendarme Kostandin and his young son Ionice) try to bring the runaway gypsy slave home, slowly and sedately moving through all the patterns of road cinema, the efforts of the director and artists, turns into a surprisingly interesting and integral thing. Yes, integrity is one of the most important and exhaustive characteristics of the film. Without exaggeration, each scene of the film carries meaning, is perfectly built from a technical point of view and correctly spelled out. The wonderful landscapes chosen for filming, in this case, do not bury the philosophical analysis invested in the dialogues between the characters, but only competently emphasize them. In this case, Radu Jude unmistakably chooses the grotesque scheme that has been established for centuries - the collision of the beautiful and the terrible, when already in the starting scene against the backdrop of beautiful steppe landscapes there are talks about the plague, mountains of corpses and looters, which, together with the plague, increased these mountains.
Heroes are out of bounds, time is out of bounds, this movie is out of bounds and genre conventions. It is very difficult to understand where the line is between political satire, family drama-education “father-son”, road adventure, a kind of reading of “Don Quixote” in Romanian realities and a real horror film. Behind all these racist priests, telling in detail about the racial inferiority of every people in Europe, the crude intolerant humor, for which in our time, not that social anathema was betrayed (like Mel Gibson in his time), but immediately crucified and raised so that everyone could take pictures, lies the story that was. That's it, but it was. And for good reason in one of the dialogues, the father asks a rhetorical question to his son, himself answering him: “And how will our descendants remember us in 100-200 years?” They will not remember that we have cleared their way, or will curse them altogether. Day passes and night passes.” Radu Jude quite deliberately removes the cinematic principles of heroes and villains, does not try to whitewash certain black moments of the past and blacken white, but creates his finished from all sides, black and white only from a technical point of view, a canvas on which people are only people, and an era is just an era, and nothing more.