KONTINENTAL ’25

Radu Jude made two movies about vampires this year: his anarchic Spirit Halloween epic Dracula, where he reclaims and defiles a foundational myth of his homeland, and Kontinental ’25, a brilliant, bone-dry satire in which a government functionary feeds on the sympathy of everyone within earshot. Ostensibly inspired by Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist classic Europe ’51, Jude’s film starts out following the last day of a man living on the margins who is about to be thrown out of the maintenance room where he’s squatting. When the bailiff assigned to his case discovers his body, she is performatively horrified. In true Judian fashion, the movie shifts gears into a bold and biting comedy about the twisted power of delusion. The case worker, Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), is intent on making the man’s death all about her as she repeats the events inconsistently to a number of barely interested parties, much to our cringy amusement. Jude’s ever-expanding repertory of fearless actors chomp into the scenario with gusto (special shout-out to his newly-minted motormouthed muse Adonis Tanța). Following on the heels of acclaimed provocations Bad Luck Banging (or Loony Porn) and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Kontinental ’25 is another unsparing work of late-capitalism satire from cinema’s premier absurdist. ~OO