Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn [2021]

 Radu Jude, in his loopy, pungent, delirious, absurdist, provocative, funny and formally adventurous film Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, served a scalding, ferocious and no-holds-barred indictment of conservative bourgeois morality, and in turn the Romanian society. It boldly navigated through amateur smut, dry realism, kaleidoscopic montage, political satire, black comedy and unfettered farce, alongside a salacious prologue and a wickedly playful three-act structure. The film’s premise involved Emi (Katia Pascariu), a capable history teacher at an elite school, whose job comes under fire when a public scandal erupts around her on account of a leaked sex tape that’s gone viral. It begins with an unsimulated home video – featuring Pascariu herself – where the couple’s acts were often hilariously interspersed with voices from other rooms speaking about medicines to be purchased and kid’s toys to be sanitized. That latter point, which unequivocally foregrounded the movie in the Covid-era, was further established in the terrific first segment, “One-Way Street”, where we see Emi walking endlessly through the streets of Bucharest running various errands, while tension gradually mounts as she’s been summoned for an emergency parent-teacher meeting; and, while she goes about walking, we see the brash machismo, misogyny, consumerism and social media driven fake news that the city has become infested with. The fabulous middle segment, “Short Dictionary of Anecdotes, Signs and Wonders”, was a scathing and stunningly crafted montage covering a dizzying range of topics from Romania’s past and present, including Nazi-era massacres, Ceaușescu’s totalitarian regime, the Church’s complicity, the 1989 revolution, xenophobia, sexual hypocrisy, neoliberalism, etc. And finally, in “Praxis and Innuendoes (Sitcom)”, Emi faces a hostile, sanctimonious, and lascivious kangaroo court which explodes into the wackiest climax imaginable.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Radu Jude

Genre: Black Comedy/Political Satire/Social Satire

Language: Romanian

Country: Romania