Director Porumboiu confesses to admiring the early work of Jim Jarmusch, but this feels as if it could have spun off from one idea in a Tati comedy. It is set in an un-named little town, somewhere east of Bucharest and built mostly of drab post-communist concrete. All of the exterior shots emphasise the drab modernity, in grainy near-monochrome. In contrast to this, the lives of the town's citizens are described almost as if they are living in a village, during the build-up to New Year; or as the subtitles have it, 'new year's'. The old man who regularly does a 'Santa', the school teacher who throws his earnings down his throat, the talk-show host desperately attempting to gather enough guests to discuss whether or not a revolution happened locally to coincide with the downfall of Ceaucescu, the kid who wants to be a video artist instead of gamely pointing the TV camera where he is told. The story introduces all these characters, giving them no obvious interconnection, until they are dropped into the TV studio with the added pressures of real time and occasional phone-in callers. It's here that the quiet, wry humour steps up a level, and with especially the creative use of the 'F' word gets the audience laughing out loud instead of smiling sadly. There's a kind of coda, taking a line from the interview about how street lights work and extending it into a metaphor, back in the grainy streets as darkness falls again, but dressed up for the season. If it were music, it might take its place beside the romantics, although it's perhaps closer in spirit to Zappa. Discuss!
Review of 12:08 East of Bucharest
