Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

At its core, this a classic morality tale whose carnivalesque ending exposes the true characters of several hypocrites in response to one female teacher’s “internet bunga bunga”. It thus scores hits on targets that are so slow-moving that it is almost impossible to miss them. However, Radu Jude attacks social and narrative conventions with such a sense of absurdity and such vigour not seen in Eastern and Central European cinema since perhaps the films of Dušan Makavejev and other filmmakers of the Yugoslav Black Wave. ___ Jude approaches nudity and sexuality with a similar matter-of-factness as in the Romanian film Touch Me Not, whose poster hangs in the background of the opening sex scene. Though the couple spice things up with masks, dirty talk and leather whips, this is rather ordinary domestic sex, in which there is nothing disturbing, despite the events that follow. Much more offensive things happen on the streets of Bucharest in the opening part of the film, where vulgarisms and the sexualisation of women are a terrifyingly common part of life in the city. ___ The formalistic open-mindedness of the film’s three stylistically different chapters reflects the communicational impotence of the characters, who are incapable of listening to each other due to their age, class or religious differences, as well as the inwardness of their intellectually limited worlds. At the same time, a certain unkemptness, resulting from the rapid filming, amplifies the urgency of Jude’s critique. It is not a precise analysis of social conditions, but rather an angry eclectic shot at the viewers, who, perhaps only by silently observing, are in part responsible for the fact that negligible peccadillos distract from serious crimes and contribute to the division of society; that external appearances (in the form of a polished statue in a schoolyard, for example) are given precedence over internal values; that sexism, racism and nationalism are displacing democratic ideals. It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of this barrage of seemingly empty observational shots (which actually overflow with meaning), unexpected connections, erect penises and quotes from Benjamin, Brecht, Eco, Kracauer and Kundera. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is an ideal film for this age of apathy and probably the funniest winner of the Golden Bear. 85% (12/05/2021)

The excellent Radu Jude follows in the footsteps of his previous film “I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” and once again harshly punishes Romanian society; and he makes us again shudders at how much of what we see can be applied to Czech reality. The film is basically about how the morally dull people who – at least according to Jude – make the majority of post-communist Romania are mentally incapable of distinguishing right from wrong and important from unimportant, and operate according to the formal morality of the nineteenth century or so. So the film presents a bunch of prudish morons, including a briber, a green brain from the army, a racist, a homophobe, a holocaust denier, an anti-Russian, and a conspiracy theorist, who blast a poor teacher who dared (imagine that!) to make a sex-tape with her husband, and you are immediately reminded of how Czech supporters of the biggest political trash persistently overlook the greatest moral sludge imaginable, but always reliably start complaining about lack of respect when someone writes that president Miloš Zeman is a treasonous whore – they only recognise the ugly word and that’s as far as their moral compass will go. (09/04/2021)

Bad Luck Banging is a more intellectual, craftier and, in its work with form and concept, more anarchic How To with John Wilson, but instead of freewheeling New York storytelling, the depraved decadence of Bucharest stands out in a blend of documentary, theatrical and narrative approaches as if Radu Jude materialised not only his corona browsing history ranging from inessential facts and thought-provoking trivia through the weeds of autistic discussion-forum rants to porn. (13/05/2021)

Bad Luck Banging est un film qui défie les critères d’évaluation conventionnels et je trouve qu’il serait presque inapproprié de lui coller une quelconque étiquette. Il s’agit d’une réflexion sociopolitique en trois actes, le premier pouvant être qualifié de version dynamique de Google Street View, le deuxième, d’essai documentaire sur une multitude de thèmes et le troisième, de polémique agitée suscitée par le sujet controversé au cœur de l’intrigue. Ça pousse à réfléchir et divertit par un humour bizarre mais efficace. Cela dit, je ne suis pas fan de la structure biscornue et puis surtout, le premier tiers reste quelque peu en travers de la gorge. (08/06/2021)

Somewhere recently I was joking that a period fresco shot in the Aleksei German method, i.e. a seemingly incoherent chaotic jumble of scenes full of half-crazed characters, is impossible to film in today's boring pragmatic environment. Lol, what an arrogant complainer I am. In reality, just set the camera on any spot in Bucharest and things happen. The first two thirds of the film are absolutely divine Bethlehem, partly because it’s still a film. It's not until the third act that it turns into a theatre of caricatures, where everyone is already sort of obligatorily chuckling because it's just a materialized gehenna of conflicting opinions on social media. And yet Radu Jude just can't master that "constructive, positive satire", and his resignation to Romanian society (which is practically the same as ours, sorry) will never even allow him to master it. And that's just as well. Except all I could do is stare for two hours at a woman walking through Bucharest where everyone is completely messed up. But they've got big cars. "Mathematics tells us what would happen if everything could be." (03/09/2021)

Au début, je pensais que le film serait, à l'image de son titre, malheureux et débile, même si je pouvais percevoir les aspects sociaux et la critique au cours de l'interminable promenade à travers Bucarest – une ville qui n'aspire visiblement pas à être la plus belle métropole d'Europe mais qui, par contre, invite à la critique sociale. La deuxième partie, qui relève de l'alternatif, de l'expérimental, voire de la créativité, a dissipé mes inquiétudes initiales. Puis est arrivée la troisième partie qui, cette fois, m'a conquis et grâce à laquelle je mets, sans y regarder de trop près, quatre étoiles. Était-ce une satire grotesque et mordante, un drame psychologique ? Peut-être que même Radu Jude n'a pas pu se décider, d'où un tel final ? Quoi qu'il en soit, cette troisième partie exige du spectateur une bonne connaissance en littérature et en histoire et des références cinématographiques solides pour être pleinement appréciée. Et la plupart d'entre nous, ici en République tchèque, auront probablement du mal avec les réalités roumaines. Je vois une légère connexion avec notre Chyby par Prušinovský et la touche tchèque est également perceptible à travers la participation de Petra Nesvačilová. Je peux tout à fait imaginer cette troisième partie et la discussion qu'elle engendre en Slovaquie, en Pologne, en Bulgarie, en Hongrie... En fin de compte, les Roumains ne m'ont pas déçu et leur cinéma vaut le détour ! (26/08/2023)