#aferim!

Seen (again) in 2022:

Aferim!, Radu Jude, 2015

I've been meaning to see this movie for a very long time now, and I finally got around last night to see it and I've got to say, I really enjoyed it. We take a break from movies that look at the post-socialist period in the New Romanian Wave Cinema and we delve into a film placed in the early 19th century Wallachia. Unlike many historical period films in Romanian cinema, this one does not feature big historical events or personalities. Instead, it focuses on the life of ordinary people, depicting social realities of that period that are well, really acknowledged or discussed, and I am referring here to Roma slavery.

The plot follows Costadin and his son who are hired by a local nobleman to retrieved a runaway Roma slave. Upon finding Carfin, they learn that the reason he ran away was the fact that the noble's wife slept with him and for this, he will probably be killed. Although Costadin does not agree in realising him (even though his son argues in favour of doing this) he promises to persuade the noble to spare his life. On their travels, we meet a plethora of iconic characters like an antisemitic priest, another runaway Roma boy, a prostitute, a Turkish nobleman, a corrupt policeman, and so on.

Ultimately, the story seemed to be a social commentary on toxic masculinity and how it relates to gender, class and most importantly race relations, especially in the climactic scene where the nobleman reacts very outlandish in fear of his masculinity being hurt by the acts of his wife. Aferim will remain an important piece for shining light on a historical reality that many in Romania want to deny or simply don't know about, and I am referring here to the 500 years of Roma slavery.

A divorced dad goes to extreme lengths to go on holiday with his daughter in Radu Jude's dark comedy, out on Blu-Ray from Second Run.

Previously, the only film by the Romanian director Radu Jude to receive a general release in the UK is Aferim!, an eccentric, stylized take on Western genre tropes that slowly reveals itself to be a commentary on a historical atrocity little-known outside Eastern Europe. Now, Second Run have released his sophomore feature Everybody in Our Familyon Blu-Ray, and it initially seems hard to believe…