Review: Tales From The Golden Age (“Amintiri din epoca de aur”)
Palme d’or winner Cristin Mungiu returns to the big screen with 4 other directors to present a portmanteau film of five vignettes depicting life at the end of the Romanian Communist period highlighting hardships and urban myths during the Ceausescu dictatorship. The five short films are:
1. The Legend of the Official Visit
2. The Legend of the Party Photographer
3. The Legend of the Chicken Driver
4. The Legend of the Greedy Policeman
5. The Legend of the Air Sellers
What is unusual about this film is whilst all of the vignettes has been written by Cristian Mungiu, none of the short films have been attributed to a particular director unlike with other portmanteau films such as Paris Je T’aime. As with all episodic films whether this film is successful very much depends upon whether the tone of each of the films works together and herein lies the problem with Tales From The Golden Age. The first two vignettes are quite broad farce with comedy made from the clunking mechanics of the party machine. This is in contrast to the somewhat more downbeat slower movement stories of the Chicken Driver and Greedy Policeman which hold a mirror up to the problems and hardships suffered by the average person during Ceausescu’s regime, in particular the rationing and hunger. The final vignette is a far lighter story again. For me, the more comedic and farcical elements worked far better and I actually found myself willing the longer Legend of the Chicken Driver to make way for something lighter.
There are some good performances in the film of actors that I would like to see more of, particularly in the final vignette, where the actors Diana Cavillioti (as Crina) and Radu Iacoban (as Bughi) who play a schoolgirl and a student running a scam collecting bottles. I would like to see more of Cristian Mungiu’s filmmaking but I don’t think this is the right outlet for his clear talent. Having said that, this film is far more watchable than 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days which was fantastic but gruelling and a tough watch.
Romanian cinema is clearly on the up but these vignettes would work better as separate shorts rather than as a collective whole. 6/10
