Amintiri din epoca de aur (Tales from the Golden Age)

I believe you don’t need to have lived any totalitarian real life episode to understand this magnificent sarcastic, very dark/black humor, bizarre, and plain funny period comedy/drama collection of short stories about Communism in Romania during the late ‘80s and the so-called Ceausescu Golden Age. All six shorts are written by none other than Cristian Mungiu and directed by Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Höffer, Răzvan Mărculescu, Constantin Popescu, and Cristian Mungiu who directed two episodes.

Stories are based on urban myths, rumors of farcical absurdities that Romanians lived under communist rule; shorts were screened in different order and not all screenings had the six shorts, whilst viewers can have different reactions to the compilation, which somehow simulates what Romanians lived while being in line to buy something, that’s it according to the director.

As a movie has an uniform look and feeling which I assume was not what was expected of having different directors and have to admit that I wonder what would have happened if Mungiu had directed all episodes but settle with would not have been that different as stories in the order I saw them had fluidity and style look quite similar. So from a cinematic point-of-view film is a good representative of the new wave of Romanian Cinema and if you enjoy the form, style and stories from what has become one of my favorite cinemas in the world, then I’m sure you will enjoy these stories that will make you laugh hard, smile and perhaps even shred one tear.

If you enjoy absurd stories with dry black humor then this compilation is for you but please remember that film absolutely belongs to Romanian new wave cinema that is not for general audiences. Still if you love Romanian cinema as much as I do then film absolutely is must be seen for you.

Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC