No esperes demasiado del fin del mundo

Radu Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is a blistering indictment of modern capitalism, disguised as a workplace comedy. The film follows an overworked production assistant tasked with creating a safety video for a multinational corporation, only to have the project derailed by a whistleblower's exposé.

What follows is a chaotic, darkly humorous descent into the heart of corporate greed and societal indifference. Jude's film is a masterclass in satire, using absurd situations and deadpan delivery to expose the systemic failures that underpin our world. The pacing is relentless, mirroring the frenetic pace of modern life, and the performances are uniformly excellent.

While the film's runtime is lengthy, it never feels indulgent. Every scene serves a purpose, contributing to the overall message. It's a challenging watch, but a deeply rewarding one. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is essential viewing for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of contemporary society.

After deducting one star for over-the-top vulgarity, much of that from protagonist Angela's TikTok alter ego Bobita; and one more star for being way too long; this left eight stars to work with, and the film earned them all. My first impression of Angela was dim, but she was just a tough, bright cookie doing her own thing - mostly driving, apparently -- in rough circumstances. Terrific acting.

Can't say how well the "movie within a movie" device worked. I understand it was to provide both contrast and context, but after awhile it became intrusive and repetitive, like prolonged scenes of Angela's gum-chewing during relentless drives, and a wholly gratuitous sequence of highway fatality crosses. The scene at the end filming Ovidiu and his family is especially sharp, with quite a few lessons hidden in there.

Not exactly sure why, but the film overall reminded me of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria ... not for any obvious reasons, but a similar tone.

The ending was abrupt but appropriate and satisfying. Closing credits are wacky, not something I often see. Major credit too goes to whomever did the English subtitles: they were spot-on, very nuanced.

Not too sure about how it makes Bucharest look, though.

Wow. I just finished watching this film and could not get enough. It is a slow burn to start off but as I watched I found myself getting pulled in. This is the story of an overworked woman, who travels from place to place capturing videos of the survivors of nearby, workplace accidents. The most compelling story awards the family a cash prize and commercial spot about workplace safety. In the end, the participants and the rigors of the process are skewered answering questions about capitalism, voyuerism, status, and the results of hardwork. The main character is an endurance champion. The writer and director brought to my mind Proust, capturing the day to day human condition in such a realistic way. I did not want this movie to end. Hopefully there's a 5 hour directors cut out there.

Some may find it discouraging to look upon the world with a robustly cynical outlook, yet, given prevailing conditions in the world today, it may sometimes be unavoidable, an attribute reflected in many contexts, including art and cinema. And that's just what Romanian writer-director Radu Jude has done in his latest feature outing, a biting, darkly satirical comedy-drama that lays bare many of the everyday frustrations that his countrymen experience in areas like politics, corruption and economic opportunities. The film tells this story through the experiences of Angela Raducani (Ilinca Manolache), an overworked, underpaid, sleep-deprived movie production assistant as she struggles to make it through her daily work routine, an unappreciated effort not unlike that thrust upon many contemporary Romanians. To compensate for the tedium of her career and to let off some considerable pent-up steam, Angela makes short videos of her own featuring a foul-mouthed, sexually provocative male alter-ego, Bobitja, who swears like a sailor and describes explicit erotic encounters that would make a porn star blush. She also wrestles with the many self-serving demands of her arrogant Austrian corporate sponsors and a bloated Romanian bureaucracy that proves ineffectual in resolving property ownership issues related to her family's cemetery plots. Moreover, the picture draws uncanny parallels in the living and working conditions experienced by the nation's present-day residents with those who lived under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in the 1980s, presented here through intercut thematically linked film clips from the 1982 Romanian melodrama "Angela merge mai departe" ("Angela Moves Forward"), the story of a taxi driver whose circumstances mirror those of the beleaguered PA. It all makes for quite an intriguing and engaging mix of story elements, one the holds viewer attention well for about two-thirds of the release, especially in its deliciously bawdy, ribald humor. However, with a 2:43:00 runtime, it becomes somewhat trying as a comedy (and as a movie overall), serving up an excess of almost everything. Unlike comparably long offerings such as "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), which manage to successfully sustain their humor for such a lengthy duration, this effort starts getting repetitive, running out of gas to keep propelling it forward, especially in the somewhat exasperating final half-hour. Like Jude's previous release, "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn" ("Barbardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc") (2021), this outing definitely could have benefitted from some judicious editing, particularly in its endless footage of the protagonist driving through heavy Bucharest traffic. To the filmmaker's credit, "End of the World" deserves kudos for its irreverence and its ambitious inventiveness and willingness to try the untried, but this is yet another example of a project where the creator fails to kill his darlings, an undertaking that could have been accomplished successfully in lobbing off about 20 minutes of extraneous material, especially in the closing moments. This one is worth a look if you're willing to be patient with it, as that's essential to make your way through all the way to the end. But, if you don't go in with that attitude, you might be expecting too much from the end of the film.

Angela, the overworked and underpaid production assistant, drives through chaotic Bucharest, trying to film castings for a commercial. Completely stressed out and exhausted, she desperately seeks a few minutes of peace, but her boss keeps calling, telling her to drink a strong coffee or a Red Bull and to keep working. The ringtone on Angela's phone when work calls is "Ode to Joy" - the EU anthem.

A film that couldn't be more cynical. It's an authentic critique of society and capitalism, wrapped in bold, crude situational humor. The West-especially Austria, the country that in recent years blocked Romania from joining the Schengen Area-is constantly ridiculed.

It's not common to see a Romanian film that is so critical of the present, as most tend to condemn the past under Ceausescu and embrace capitalism without much questioning. Radu Jude shows that those days are likely over, as things haven't improved much for Romanians. Quite the opposite. Nature is being destroyed for private companies, cities are drowning in traffic, intellectuals are leaving the country, and poverty is everywhere.

This dark comedy is, for me, a highlight of the year. It makes you think, but most of all, it makes you laugh out loud.