Aferim!

By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Radu Jude
Starring: Alberto Dinache | Luminita Gheorghiu | Mihai Comanoiu | Teodor Corban | Toma Cuzinm Alexandru Dabija | Victor Rebengiuc

Country: bulgaria, czech_republic, france, romania

Year: 2016

Running time: 108

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4374460/reference

Kate says: “Marius Panduru’s high-contrast B&W photography provides the audience with a crisp and caustic lens through which to view the slapstick adventures of a bureaucratic flunky and his son, as they chase down a Romany slave running from his feudal ‘lord and master’ (after an alleged romance with the nobleman’s wife). Who knew that slavery, bigotry and random acts of clumsy violence in mid-19th century Wallachia could be turned on its ear in such a sly fashion? The arid landscape and isolated outposts through which the characters pass calls to mind the classic Westerns of the 1950s and ’60s; the casual abuse and sneering disdain aimed at ‘gypsies’, Russians, Hungarians and Jews is reminiscent of modern society’s slow and stumbling path toward acceptance/integration of immigrants and minorities into the mainstream population. This blackly comic slice of life reminds us that we have not traveled as far away from these prejudices as we would like to believe.”