Directed by Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 weeks, 2 Days), Tales from the Golden Age is structured around the grim irony of urban myths generated during the worst years of the Ceausescu regime.
Humor is what kept Romanians alive, and “Tales From The Golden Age” aims to re-capture that mood, portraying the survival of a nation having to face every day the twisted logic of a dictatorship… an era during which food was more important than money, freedom more important than love and survival more important than principles.
Romania’s Oscar submission this year is Corneliu Porumboiu’s ‘Politist, adj.’ a deceptively simply story of informants and surveillance that frames a sophisticated exercise in interpreting the boundaries of moral authority. Spearheaded by Munji and Porumboiu, the recent mini-renaissance in Romanian cinema is producing a wry and melancholy look at a weary society still grappling with its emergence from decades of ethically deadening totalitarianism. Though the backdrop is bleak, there are few things more beautiful and uplifting than tender sprigs of hope sprouting through cracks in the concrete.
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