The New Year That Never Came

My father tried two times to cross the border (with his friend) during communism, the first time being caught at the border with Yugoslavia and 2nd time being caught in Greece, sent back to Romania, and beaten and interrogated exactly like in the movie. Yesterday was a very special night since I assisted at a very special screening together with my father.

In the past years, I was disgusted with any subject related to communism since I hated so much the consequences supported by so many generations of Romanians. We still suffer because of this past dictator, even the ones born after the revolution.

Now I see the importance of going back 'there' to remind us not to repeat the same mistakes.

Very emotional film for the entire sold-out cinema hall... One of the best movies ever made after the Romanian Revolution (1989).

The 2024 Venice Film Festival crowned New Year That Never Came as its Best Film, and for good reason. Directed by a visionary new talent , this movie is a masterful meditation on loss, memory, and the surreal passage of time. With its striking visuals and emotionally charged performances, it captivated audiences, offering a haunting and unforgettable cinematic experience.

At its core, *New Year That Never Came* weaves together a narrative that explores the human tendency to cling to hopes for the future, even when the present feels stagnant. The plot revolves around a community preparing for a much-anticipated New Year's celebration that, mysteriously, never arrives. Days stretch endlessly, and time appears frozen, forcing the characters to confront their deepest desires, regrets, and fears. The film's pacing, often slow and deliberate, mirrors the liminal space the characters inhabit-a space between the hope for renewal and the reality of an endless today.

Visually, the film is a feast. The cinematography, drenched in cold blues and muted hues, paints a world on the brink of despair but still clinging to the warmth of hope. The town, blanketed in unseasonal snow and captured with a stillness that echoes the characters' emotional paralysis, becomes a symbol for dreams deferred. Director , through innovative shot composition and symbolic use of recurring imagery-clocks, fireworks that never explode-creates a disorienting yet mesmerizing atmosphere.

The performances are equally powerful. The cast, delivers nuanced portrayals of people grappling with internal and external inertia. It gives a particularly heartbreaking performance as , whose journey of self-discovery amid the uncertainty resonates deeply. Every character, however minor, feels fully realized, adding to the movie's rich emotional texture.

At its heart, reflects on the nature of time, anticipation, and the emotional weight of deferred moments. The New Year, traditionally a time of renewal, becomes a metaphor for a future that is always just out of reach. It's a profound exploration of how people cope with unfulfilled expectations-whether through denial, anger, or acceptance-and how, sometimes, the future we pin our hopes on may never come.

One of the film's greatest strengths is its refusal to provide easy answers. The audience is left questioning whether the lack of a New Year is a supernatural occurrence, a metaphor for societal stagnation, or the manifestation of the characters' collective psychological states. This ambiguity, rather than.

Is an extraordinary movie that captures the essence of the late 1989, just before the Romanian Revolution. The story follows the lives of people living under Ceausescu's regime, just one day before the events that would change the course of Romania history. The film accurately portrays the tension, fear, and uncertainty that gripped everyone during that time.

I was only 6 years old when the Revolution happened, but many scenes in the movie brought back memories of that era. Although I didn't fully understand everything back then, I remember the dramatic atmosphere and the feeling of unease everywhere around me.

While the beginning may feel a bit slow, which is often the case with Romanian films, the ending is powerful and unforgettable. I can say that the movie conveys a deep and clear message, especially for those who lived through those times.

'The New Year That Never Came' tells stories from the last two days of non-freedom for the Romanians. It is, incredibly, the debut feature film - at the age of 50! - by director Bogdan Muresanu. A solid, mature, emotional film and a history lesson for those Romanians - alas, too many - who do not know or have forgotten the past of the communist dictatorship. In my opinion, in the history of Romanian cinema, it is a significant film, as was Lucian Pintilie's 'Reconstitution' from 1970. That one was only the second film of Romania's most important theater and film director in the second half of 20th century.

The action of "The New Year That Never Came" takes place on December 20 and 21, 1989, at the end of the period of the communist dictatorship. The characters of the film, like most of those who lived those times, have neither the feeling nor the hope that they will get to live the change that will take place soon, the fall of communism that had already happened in almost all the countries of Eastern Europe. Even when foreign radio stations announce the protests that started in Timisoara, nothing seems to budge in Bucharest. The Securitate secret police seems all-powerful, the propaganda machine is in full swing, life full of shortages and dominated by fear continues. A Securitate officer manipulates his informants who surveil the lives of students and intellectuals. He also has a mother who is about to be evicted from the house she had lived in all her life, which will be demolished to make way for grandiose buildings in the new city center. A television crew has to urgently change a tribute film to the dictatorship scheduled for New Year's Eve, in which an actress who had fled to the West appears in the foreground, in a situation reminiscent of the collection of short films 'Memories from the Golden Age' of Mungiu. The replacement actress has a crisis of conscience when she is forced to participate in the show. A family enters a crisis after learning that their eight-year-old boy asked in a letter to the communist version of Santa Claus to see Uncle Nicu dead, 'because that's what dad wants'. The son of the television director plans to flee the country with a friend across the Danube, the border with Yugoslavia. In the music of Ravel's Bolero, the narrative planes alternate, the tension builds, the boiling point approaches. Will the mamaliga (Romanian polenta) explode?

I found the narrative construction excellent. At first, the viewer may be a little confused by the multitude of characters and situations, but quite quickly the common denominator (fear, hope suppressed in struggle with resignation, long-repressed anger) and the connections between the characters become clear. For those who lived through that era, the settings and cinematic style create a sense of immersion in the past. All the actors are formidable, but I can't help mentioning three names: Iulian Postelnicu (who had major roles in at least three good films I've seen in the last year), Adrian Vancica and Nicoleta Hancu. I found the reconstruction of those last days and hours of the dictatorship impressive, with only one major flaw related to the final scene, that of the rally in Palace Square, where a fictional intervention in the key detail of the start of the protest that changed history leaves room for a revisionist interpretation. Romanian cinema has returned, repeatedly, for 35 years now, to the final years of the dictatorship and even to the days when Romania's fate changed. Several of the resulting films were memorable. "The New Year That Never Came" is a remarkable creation, which adds to this list at a time when politically motivated revisionism fuels the pseudo-nostalgia of those who have forgotten or who did not know the dictatorship.

This film is a triumph of Romanian cinema, showcasing a generation of actors who have reached artistic maturity. The film portrays the mood leading up to the 1989 revolution, but without exaggeration, because reality itself was absurd. The way the film manages to capture both the everyday scenes from before 1989 and the emotional state of the people, along with the verbal patterns used at the time, makes the viewer relive (or experience for the first time) the lives of people in 1989. By the end of the film, no one from the audience could get up from their seat! Moving and uplifting, a true work of art! A big "bravo" to the director, the actors, the cinematography, the script and the soundtrack!