Well well well. The last 5 years of film made me think Radu Jude was made of pure black heart and scar tissue, going scorched Earth to expose the wrongs of an unfeeling society. Turns out, all that iconoclast bombast was just hiding a broken heart. Jude shows us he found his, as well as an editor, with Kontinental ’25, a morality play only some as jaded as he could tell so wonderfully.
At first glance, this is just another job task for Orsolya (Eszter Tompa). After trying to get Ion (Gabriel Spahiu) help to leave his tiny boiler room one bed apartment willingly, the time has come to force him out with the police. During that process, Ion unexpectedly takes his own life in a brutal way. Even though legally she’s not at fault, Orsolya is shattered and shaken, rethinking her process to where she failed/could have done more. So much so that she doesn’t go with her family to their Greek vacation and instead does a lot of self-reflection to see what she has to do next.
The beginning is classic Jude: we watch Ion go about his day to day life, searching for recyclable bottles and cans across Cluj (a town in Romania). Watching this tough day to day living juxtaposed by a creepy animatronic dinosaur park or him going into a town festival, grabbing a microphone asking for money is heartbreaking and devilishly funny…until it isn’t. Ion’s suicide is played straight, and snaps the viewer to attention like it does Orsolya. Living by his credo life is a simultaneous mixture of comedy and tragedy, Jude then pivots the story to Orsolya’s headspace…and the Office Space of it all. Most people in the world don’t have their dream jobs; they’re doing what they can to make the best life for themselves. But that choice comes with sacrifices, and in Orsolya’s case, sacrifices that eat to the core of her being and belief that she is doing something good for society. Eszter Tompa is so good at making you feel her genuine guilt and torment she feels after Ion’s suicide, barely containing her feelings as she reaches out for some sort of moral clarity on what’s next for her. Throughout that process, Jude has her walking the same steps Ion did (even though she doesn’t know that), begging for help…by saying the lord’s prayer around an animatronic velociraptor. Even with the more focused material, Jude has to remind everyone hey, some of this is still a little funny if you zoom out a little bit.
But I knew the director had something like this movie in him. This film is not experimental at all, instead deeply focused at just over an hour forty-five. Orsolya’s contemplative journey is a fable that only someone from Eastern Europe could conjure so brilliantly. With family on vacation, Orsolya reaches out to anyone/everyone who cares about her and will listen, each providing some sort of additional perspective for the tormented baliff. Each piece of advice is helpful; her friend Dorina (Oana Mardare) shares a similar plight she’s in about a homeless person near her house and how she chooses to deal with/help others accordingly. A former student of Orsolya’s Fred (Adonis Tanta, a Jude all-star) distracts her with drunken clarity and faux zenisms to laugh through the pain. Even mom (Annamária Biluska) helps Orsolya release some anger via a classic family political conversation that had me near tears I was laughing so hard. The final capper by a wonderfully worldly priest (Serban Pavlu) completing Orsolya’s journey of self-reflection. And yet, all this advice feels…strange, but in a good way. That’s because Kontinental ’25 isn’t some hero’s journey where the main character starts a new career and upends the social system of justice. This is about the person in the middle, trying to get back to neutral so they can enjoy the little existence they built for themselves in the broken world. You can judge Orsoloya’s morality all you want, but I suggest most of you do some deep reflecting yourself about the day to day compromises you make for the life you choose to lead; my guess is you’ll find yourself relating to this meek sweet lady more than you think.
Kontinental ’25 ups the bar for Radu Jude. He can’t just throw acidic darts at society anymore. He’s shown here he’s too good a storyteller for that. I still feel there’s a level he can get to where he puts it all together and gives us his version of Uncle Vanya, or a more twisted funny sad Gift of the Magi like story. Complete with AI slop Dracula edits for his die hard fans.