Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)

'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.

Fmovies: I watched this movie knowing only the title, and I believe the element of surprise elevated the experience. Without spoiling the story, I can say that this movie is perfectly described as a roller coaster ride.

In the beginning of the ride, you have a steady climb ahead of you, which takes its time to get to a high altitude. You keep going upvery slowly, and all you can see is the track going up. The main character is introduced, and we follow her for a good while.

Then, the roller coaster slows down and halts at the top. There's a change of chapter and you're not sure about what's coming next. A dictionary of different words is displayed through text and visuals, words that aren't necessarily interconnected. Then, when you least expected it, the roller coaster gains a lot of speed and goes all over the place super fast. You don't even have time to process everything that you're seeing and you can't see where this is going to take you. You even get a bit confused and scared about how long this part is going to last, yet you can't escape the ride yet.

Then, when you're shaken up for the rollercoaster, the ride suddenly starts going slower as you get to a more steady track, and you realise that the end of the ride may arrive soon. The story returns to the teacher and we find out her fate. Here, the conservative nature of the Romanian culture is displayed, with moments of humour, frustration and seriousness, with many stereotypes of people showing their true colours and values.

But then... the roller coaster reveals a loop out of nowhere, that leaves you upside down and then the ride ends really abruptly. You don't know what just happened, you don't know how to react and as you're unbuckling your seatbelt and leaving the premises, you're still confused as hell.

This review may be relatable to the people who have seen this movie, yet may leave people who haven't seen it yet really confused. And I'm still confused about this movie myself, and this is the best way I can describe this.

I recommend people to watch this movie. As confused about how to feel about this movie, I think this is an excellent thought-provoking experience which could start a debate about real-life cultural problems.

Winner of the berlinale; 11/10. Thé bistrot of Romania told as never before.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn fmovies. 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.

I think it's a pedagogical film, and it's bringing the most to the many appreciating it the least. Maybe it's reaching for a wider audience than it's capable of satisfying, but it's crafty, employing a wide variety of tricks to get the whatever message across. For example, the first part is annoyingly noisy, while the second part, mostly a long explicit collage of the whatever message, slips right into the audiences now relaxing mind.

However, the true value of this movie lies in the future. In 10, 30 years, this snapshot of ~today's ~Bucharest is going to be a real historic nugget to watch.

Radu Jude has become the enfant terrible of Romanian film since he won the director's Silver Bear for "Aferim" (2015), a Western of sorts which was indeed highly innovative and poignantly satirical. He has become a preacher of social criticism, lashing out against Romanian antisemitism, xenophobia, nationalist tendencies and now misogyny. This film won the Golden Bear, as did the equally provocative and experimental "Touch me not" by Adina Pintilie in 2018. Pintilie was part of the jury which awarded the prize, adding to the controversy of crowning a film made on EU film fund money that very few Romanians would be willing to see. Jude isn't wrong with his observations - he just presents them in a deliberately awkward fashion, practically forcing the viewer into a hostile reaction.

Splitting the film in three different chapters doesn't help. In the first installment - after an explicit private sex tape-, we see the main character shopping in CoVid-struck Bucharest and mentioning on the phone that the sex tape has been leaked, for which she has been called to a PTA meeting that night. There isn't any narrative purpose, all we see is construction sites, ads, SUV drivers losing their temper. Then follows an equally pointless dictionary of sorts, with situational shots Jude deems representative of Romanian society. At last, the story resumes with the PTA meeting, where the woman is heavily accused of debauchery and corruption of youth, but steadfastly defends herself. Ultimately there are three increasingly bizarre conclusions.

As you can see from the description, this is a film that almost asks you not to watch it, which is a shame because some of its statements are truly impressive. For instance, in the "dictionary" the term "aborigeni" is translated as "persons of little worth who burden the soil of newly discovered countries"- ouch, bull's eye. There is shocking cell phone footage of a Romani woman hit by a bus driver with a cane to prevent her from boarding, a shocking reminder how real racist hatred still is in my homeland. And during the PTA confrontation, a parent apologizes for a racist slur against gypsies to a present African, who replies "it's OK, I know I'm not meant". These hard and important jabs are however drowned in a sea of obscenities. Like to many cooks spoil the soup, too many issues spoil this film.