Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

The point is clear: our society is shallow and stupid. But the way it was delivered was... Well, shallow and stupid as well. Chaotic scenes, vulgarity just for the sake of 'art', no emotion triggered whatsoever (except a little bit of a disgust actually. Maybe that was the point). Even the quasi-intellectual criticism didn't help. And the third part was intensely tiring trying to fill 30 mins with every typical political discussion full of reading articles from the smartphone. And the three different endings should have been the best part?

Sorry, didn't work out for me. But must say my friend gave it a 10 so... Not for anyone, I guess.

There are two distinct categories of people who reviewed this film: those who awarded it high marks and those who didn't- at all. The director, Radu Jude- impressed me with his "Aferim!" - a film which gives food for thought by dealing with a very little known and uncomfortable subject in Romanian history: the slavery of gypsies from past centuries.

"Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn" is just as uncomfortable, but it is set in contemporary Romania. As contemporary as it gets: the pandemic year of 2020. The title itself is misleading; this film is not about sex, though it is the starting point of the plot. For that, one can search Pornhub. This is a film about how sick and ailing the Romanian society is in its entirety; the first chapter of the film takes us on a ride along with the protagonist through the Bucharest of our days: noisy, dirty, unkempt, unruly, impolite, careless, unappealing, selfish, vulgar. If some don't like it, well, why break the mirror if it shows you what you look like? A lot of the filming in this section reminded me of La Nouvelle Vague.

The second chapter has apparently no connection whatsoever with the first. Or has it? An ad libitum dictionary of contemporary notions translated into the Romanian realities of the moment; what can be more hilarious and heart wrenching at the same time?! Considering the way it is put together, Monty Python comes to mind.

As for the third chapter, well, this is Romanian society at its best. First of all, it is not for the parents to decide whether a teacher can be fired or not; it is a state school, hence free for the pupils, so the parents shouldn't have a say in who stays and who goes. This chapter of the film is so full of harsh satire directed at how the Romanians think they have a say in everything, thus displaying a wide range of all kinds of preconceptions, stereotypes and fake news distribution- racial, political, social, sexual- that one doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

Yes, this is us, whether we like it or not.

And the grand finale, well... you have to watch it in order to choose which one suits you best. I go for the third, full throttle.

Great job, Radu Jude and his team! A fully deserved Golden Bear!

Jude is the most experimental, controversial and radical romanian filmmaker: his films never cease to offer a poignant satire of society, irredentism, or his country.

His latest film is a prime example of his peculiarities. The subject is a leaked sextape of a teacher, and the scandal it rises among parents.

The opening of the film features the actual footage of an explicit, unsimulated sextape, not for the purposes of realism (as it could have been with any other Romanian New Wave director), but to force the viewer in the act of voyeurism that will be very blatantly shown in the third act: this chapter of the film features a sort of "trial", in which the teacher is forced to face the parents of her students. When one of the parents shows the video to the others with the purpose of "showing things for what they are", the other parents mock the teacher, laugh, or watch with perverse passion. Through this external sight, the viewer is thus confronted with the reaction they probably displayed at the beginning, a very clever way to involve the audience.

The previous two chapters of this three-chapter story each have their own purpose. The second chapter is a sort of glossary/collection of anecdotes, which introduces briefly all the notions that are later mentioned in the discussion of the third act: not only sex or equality related concepts, but domestic violence, history and romanian historical episodes (as that is the teacher's subject), philosophical concepts, even a metacinematic consideration, all with the goal of preparing the viewer for the final act. It is not only a way to put all viewers on the same page, but also to make explicit the thematic range of the film.

The first chapter features Emi (the teacher) walking around Bucharest doing chores. Through her journey, Jude shows the city as it is under the pandemic (the film was entirely shot last year) and its effects of distress on people, more and more nervous, without disdaining some subtle visual digressions.

While Jude makes very clear which side he supports in the debate of the third chapter, he chooses to give three different endings to the story, which I won't disclose, maybe to thus imply that the viewer has to judge for theirself.

Awesome movie, but I don't think a person not familiar with Romanian culture and history will understand it properly. I generally don't like artsy films, but this was an example of one done right. It has kept me interested throughout, with minor exceptions. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you get sad, ashamed, bored, confused. It cycles you through these emotions in a dynamic way.

I also liked the fact that they've advertised some of the sponsors straight on, without trying to hide it in any way.

'Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn' is an unorthodox, provocative, scathing piece of moviemaking that due to its low crowd-pleasing coefficient will likely not be for everyone. Since I have no problem with significant amounts of in-your-face-attitude on the director's side, I quite liked it.

Architecturally, the movies borrows from some examples of French Nouvelle Vague Cinema - if I had a better memory, I could tell you exactly which ones - in that the camera frequently and in its center piece completely deviates from the dealings of its protagonists. In this way, a film that starts off with a story about an instance of accidental pornography widens its scope dramatically to become nothing less than a satirical portrait of a pornographic (Romanian, but just Romanian?) society. Using 'pornography' as an abstract (anti-)moral topos reminded me of Samuel Maoz' 'Foxtrot'.

While I think that the dramaturgic fundamentals of the movie are well thought through, I also think the movie could have been even better. Especially in the third part, the discussion of the matter at hand meanders quite a bit, can be tedious, and will probably not escape all charges of weisenheimery.

Bottom line is, that most viewers will probably switch it off at one point in complacent disgust. If you make it to the end, though, you will not see its explosive, weapons-grade finale coming, which is again well in line with its subversive intentions.