A Transylvanian Satire That Shows the Need To Trust the Art, Not the Artist

Radu Jude’s “Kontinental ’25” is a comedy of uneasy proportions, a sardonic exploration of the limits of empathy and the burdens of history. It is also somewhat annoying. Mr. Jude has created a compelling fiction that he insists on puctuating with commentary. Artists can be their own worst enemies, and if this writer-and-director is less egregious in his pretensions than some of his peers ithat doesn’t mean he isn’t pretentious. The good news is that Mr. Jude’s posturing isn’t fatal. “Kontinental ’25” is a sharp and engaging movie.Mr. Jude doesn’t always ingratiate himself as a storyteller. The initial 10 minutes of “Kontinental ’25” can seem like a litmus test for our patience as we watch a homeless man navigate through Cluj, a city commonly considered the capital of Transylvania. Ion (Gabriel Spahiu) begs for alms at an outdoor cafe, trudges along desolate throughways, struggles not to fall into a ravine, and zigzags around a host of towering mechanical dinosaurs.Dino Park is for real. It’s located outside the city center and entry will set back curiosity seekers to the tune of ten American dollars. But Ion isn’t the only soul we see communing with rickety prehistoric lizards. A local bailiff, Orsolya, (Eszter Tompa) recites the Lord’s prayer within a stone’s throw of a bellowing T-Rex. She’s at her wit’s end, our heroine, having been tasked with finding shelter for Ion, and then having to deal with his committing suicide while under her watch.Orsolya is rattled by Ion’s death, so much so that she begs off going on a family trip to Greece. Left alone, she reaches out to work colleagues, close friends, family members and a local priest to gain a sense of succor that is never forthcoming. Orsolya’s mother proves particularly unhelpful, and the actress Annamária Biluska, with her gravelly voice and world-weary demeanor, takes hold of the screen with a blunt authority. So, too, does Adonis Tanta, albeit in a less caustic manner: He plays Fred, a Zen-besotted former student of Orsolya’s with whom she spends an ill-advised toot.Along the way, liberal pieties are tweaked, socialism scorned, capitalism rued, and long-standing prejudices indulged. Mr. Jude’s stone-faced takedowns of rapacious developers, all those oh-so-ironic panoramas of ugly buildings and construction sites, is too much of a snide thing, the subject of adequate housing already having been integrated into the plot. As it is, Ms. Tompa’s performance redeems the director’s hubris with an abiding, all-too-flawed humanity. You’d think Mr. Jude would know enough to leave well enough alone.The well-intentioned folks responsible for advising viewers about subjects that may prove distressing in our entertainments–you know, smoking, sexual content and other topics that aren’t amenable to “safe, balanced, and responsible storytelling”–will have their hands full with Mr. Jude’s film. Ion’s suicide is, in and of itself, tragic, but Eszter’s repeated descriptions of how he went upon doing it constitutes an increasingly funny running gag. Cinemagoers who like their humor mordant and on the dry side will find the director’s absurdism appealing. Can we glean sociological insight into the picture’s ironic–not to say, “cynical”–gestalt? Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Jude name-checks the British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and President Trump before dismissing the question altogether. Trust the art, and not the artist. Kontinental ’25” is redolent of a nation that saw far-reaching and often catastrophic changes during the last century and is currently dealing with its own set of political and economic challenges. Cinemagoers eager to acquaint themselves with yet another fascinating corner of our planet while in the company of a beleaguered bureaucrat are advised to plunk down their leu here.

A Transylvanian Satire That Shows the Need To Trust the Art, Not the Artist

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