The New Year That Never Came [2024]

 Delving into incidents linked to Ceaușescu’s totalitarian regime, and the proclivity for bleak, ironic and wordy canvases, continue to be recurring motifs and tonal choices for current Romanian filmmakers too, like their trailblazing Romanian New Wave forbears. Following Metronom and Libertate from 2022 and 2023, respectively, Bogdan Mureșanu’s glorious debut feature The New Year That Never Came – a riveting hyperlinked portmanteau film that’s filled with tense paranoia, gripping desperation, cutting humour and exquisitely controlled chaos; cinematographed with understated brilliance; and set to a pulsating soundtrack – took us right into the eve of the dictator’s fall on 22^nd December 1989. The narrative, which composed of multiple interconnected strands that coalesced into a mesmeric 20-minute climactic sequence – stunningly accompanied by Ravel’s Bolero that progressively reaches its apotheosis, and wherein the claustrophobic square format dramatically changed into liberating wide-screen – crisscrossed between 6 individuals and unfolded over 2 days. TV station Director Stefan (Mihai Calin) must rapidly replace the footage of an actress in a pean to Ceaușescu as she’s defected; theatre actress Florina (Nicoleta Hancu), chosen as the replacement, wants to lose this “opportunity” at any cost; Stafan’s son, ironically, is on a reckless defection plan himself; the latter is under surveillance of state security officer Ionut (Iulian Postelnicu), whose aged mother wants to cling to her old apartment slated for demolition; meanwhile Gelu (Adrian Vancica), a factory worker tasked with shifting furniture, has just realized that his son has naively posted a letter that could get him executed. Hancu was the standout among the excellent cast, while Gelu’s story – redone from an acclaimed short by Mureșanu – was the most hilarious in this dazzling tapestry that gradually built towards an explosive crescendo.

p.s. Watched it at the 2025 Bangalore International Film Festival (BIFFES).

Director: Bogdan Muresanu

Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Political Satire

Language: Romanian

Country: Romania