goEast Katalog 2020

of this massacre as just one of many around the
world, and finally the premiere performance at a
public square in Bucharest, which devolves into
an absolute farce. With a virtuoso’s light touch,
the filmmaker manages to create an entertaining
and at the same time utterly unsettling film, one in
which the power of Romanian history is constantly
present in the world of today: in the scope of the
re-enactment, one of the portrayed Jews attempts
to escape deportation, only to be driven back
by the crowd of spectators. A horrifying scene,
demonstrating that the dark sides of history are
not forgotten, indeed their sinister tracks extend
without interruption into the present – not least
due to repression and a failure to adequately
process the past.
At this year’s Berlinale, Radu Jude celebrated
the world premiere of his most recent film,
TIPOGRAFIC MAJUSCUL / UPPERCASE PRINT (2020).
Once again, we are treated to an examination of
Romanian history, this time, however, focussing on
the dictatorship under Nicolae Ceaușescu. The film
grapples with the question of the power of state
repression on two levels. On the one hand, the film
tells the story of the adolescent Mugur Călinescu,
who became a target of the Securitate in the 1980s
for spreading regime-critical slogans. In a staging
that clearly alludes to the theatre setting and is an
adaptation of the documentary theatre piece of the
same name by Gianina Cărbunariu, based on the
Securitate’s own secret files, the total occupation
of the private sphere becomes evident, in interrogations
of schoolmates and parents, the bugging
of apartments and, finally, court cases against
Mugur. These passages are repeatedly juxtaposed
with archival television footage from the period
in question: processions honouring Ceaușescu,
but also everyday reports on athletic activities,
rules concerning carpet beating or cooking shows.
Romanian society during the Ceaușescu era is thus
completely characterised by two types of power
structures: on the one hand, the subversion of the
individual by the secret police, and, on the other
hand, the manipulation of society through the
mass media of television, with its attempts to evoke
an idyllic world that instead reveals itself to be
a chimera, single-mindedly headed towards the
state disintegration of the late 1980s. Both spheres
interact closely with one another: both are stagings
of power that objectively inscribe themselves in
reality.
Thus, Radu Jude’s work appears polymorphous in
style and full of variation when it comes to choices
of thematic material and agenda. With their
aesthetically realistic approach, his early films
investigate problems in contemporary Romania,
while AFERIM! and SCARRED HEARTS represent
two stylised treatments of Romanian history.
His three most recent works go their own ways:
these are hybrid films that operate between the
categories of fiction and documentary cinema and
integrate the most diverse materials – diaries,
photographs, theatre and archival materials.
Nevertheless, in spite of the shifting approach from
film to film, one can recognise the filmmaker’s
distinct signature: all of the films take on power
dispositives and power relations that shape both
society as a whole and the individual, inscribing
themselves in the bodies of the latter category,
from contemporary social issues in today’s
Romania to those great historical upheavals whose
shadows extend into the present. However, power
relations are never considered in isolation here,
but instead are constantly (and mutually) mirrored
between intimate circles (often the family unit)
and the greater societal context. Perhaps it is
precisely this abundance of thematic and aesthetic
variation that makes Radu Jude’s films so devastating,
fascinating and up-to-the-minute: that is, their
tendency to refuse to subjugate themselves to the
power of an aesthetic concept precisely in order
to be able to expose various power structures and
intervene in an artistic and subversive manner.
Der Film UPPERCASE PRINT steht während der Festivalwoche Covid-19-
bedingt als Video-on-Demand auf der goEast-Website zur Verfügung. Das
Werkstattgespräch findet online statt.
Due to Covid-19, during the festival week the film UPPERCASE PRINT will
be available as video-on-demand on the goEast website. The workshop
conversation will take place online.
121 PORTRAIT