Tag Archives: Francesca Beale Theater

DAYS OF AWE: PHILIPPE LESAGE’S WHO BY FIRE

Aliocha (Aurelia Arandi-Longpre) and Jeff (Noah Parker) get close in Who by Fire

WHO BY FIRE (COMME LE FEU) (Philippe Lesage, 2024)
Film at Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Francesca Beale Theater
144 West Sixty-Fifth St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
March 14-20
www.filmlinc.org
www.kimstim.com

Winner of the Grand Prix from the Generation 14plus International Jury at the 2024 Berlinale, Quebecois writer-director Philippe Lesage’s Who by Fire (Comme le feu) is two and a half hours of angst, anger, and jealousy, a coming-of-age drama with a harrowing final fifteen minutes.

One of the special prayers recited during the Jewish High Holidays is the poetic psalm Unetaneh Tokef, which describes repentance, prayer, and charity and includes the following lines: “How many shall pass away and how many shall be born, / Who shall live and who shall die, / Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not, / Who shall perish by water and who by fire, / Who by sword and who by wild beast, / Who by famine and who by thirst, / Who by earthquake and who by plague, / Who by strangulation and who by stoning, / Who shall have rest and who shall wander, / Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued, / Who shall be at rest and who shall be tormented, / Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low, / Who shall become rich and who shall be impoverished.” That quote, which was adapted by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen into the 1974 song “Who by Fire,” captures the essence of the film, which opens March 14 at Lincoln Center, with Lesage participating in Q&As at the 6:15 screening March 14 and the 3:15 show on March 15.

The story unfolds at a secluded cabin in the gorgeous Canadian woods of Haute-Mauricie, where film director Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter) has invited his former longtime collaborator, screenwriter Albert Gary (Paul Ahmarani), to spend some time. Joining Albert are his college-age daughter, Aliocha (Aurelia Arandi-Longpre), his seventeen-year-old son, Max (Antoine Marchand-Gagnon), and Max’s best friend, the shy, uneasy Jeff (Noah Parker). After a successful series of fiction films, Blake and Albert had a falling out, as the former turned to documentaries and the latter to animated television.

Blake lives with his editor, Millie (Sophie Desmarais), housekeeper, Barney (Carlo Harrietha), cook, Ferran (Guillaume Laurin), and dog, Ingmar (Kamo). Also arriving are well-known actress Hélène Falke (Irène Jacob) and her partner, Eddy (Laurent Lucas).

Over the course of several days, there is a lot of cigarette smoking and wine drinking, discussions about art and responsibility, sexual flirtations, and angry arguments between Blake and Albert that go beyond nasty, in addition to hunting, fishing, and white water rafting in the great outdoors, not all of which goes well.

Three uncut dinner scenes anchor Philippe Lesage’s Who by Fire

Who by Fire is anchored by three uncut ten-minute dinner scenes in which tensions flare, primarily involving Blake and Albert, including one in which oenophile Albert accuses Blake of switching out one of his wines. In two of the scenes, cinematographer Balthazar Lab’s camera remains motionless on one end of the long table, while in the third the camera eventually moves around to focus on Albert having an episode.

But at the center of the story is Jeff, who is awkward in his thoughts and actions. The film opens with Albert, his children, and Jeff driving on a deserted highway to be met by Blake’s helicopter. The first shot inside the car is of two young people with their hands on their knees; we don’t see their faces but can feel that at least one of them wants to touch the other. We soon learn that it is Aliocha — whose name in Russian translates to “defender of men” — and Jeff (the one who wants their hands and legs to meet). Later, after Max tells Jeff that he once caught his sister looking at S&M porn, Jeff makes a misguided play for her and, shunned, runs into the woods with his tail between his legs and becomes lost. After he is rescued, he grows mad at Blake when he catches the director and Aliocha in an intimate moment.

Most of the characters are either unlikable or not fully defined, so spending more than two and a half hours with them is a lot to ask. The cast does its job admirably, finding their way around some of Lesage’s occasionally meandering script. Cédric Dind-Lavoie’s droning score ranges from lilting to elegiac. A party scene that ends with the characters singing and dancing to the B-52’s song “Rock Lobster” starts out fun but quickly becomes something else, no mere break from the glum atmosphere.

Lesage (Les démons, Genèse) expertly balances the claustrophobic interior scenes by glorying in the beauty of nature, with outdoor scenes that celebrate the world outside. But not everyone is as comfortable as he is in those surroundings, leading to one tragedy that is followed by an even worse one, at least as far as manipulating an audience goes.

Who by Fire raises many of the questions asked in the Unetaneh Tokef, and he answers some of them while leaving plenty open to interpretation, as does Cohen when he asks, “And who shall I say is calling?”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

FAMILY PORTRAIT: JAPANESE FAMILY IN FLUX

Yoko is making its US premiere at in Japan Society / IFC Center series

FAMILY PORTRAIT: JAPANESE FAMILY IN FLUX
Japan Society, 333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
February 15 – March 22
www.ifccenter.com
japansociety.org

In February 2021, as part of the ACA Cinema Project, Japan Society and Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs teamed up for “21st Century Japan: Films from 2001-2020,” a three-week virtual festival of Japanese films from the previous twenty years, followed in December by “Flash Forward: Debut Works and Recent Films by Notable Japanese Directors,” a three-week hybrid series pairing directors’ most recent works with their debuts. Since then, they have also presented “Emerging Japanese Films” and “The Female Gaze: Women Filmmakers from Japan Cuts and Beyond.”

The festival is now back with “Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux,” ten films that explore familial bonds. The selections range from Yasujirō Ozu’s 1967 Tokyo Twilight and Kohei Oguri’s 1981 Muddy River to the New York premiere of Ryota Nakano’s 2019 A Long Goodbye and the US premieres of Teruaki Shoji’s Hoyaman and Keiko Tsuruoka’s Tsugaru Lacquer Girl. Nakano will take part in a Q&A and reception following the February 23 New York premiere of Her Love Boils Bathwater, and he will be on hand for a discussion after the February 24 showing of his latest work, The Asadas, which was inspired by real-life photographer Masashi Asada.

All screenings take place at Japan Society except for the February 22 US premiere of Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Yoko, which will be shown at IFC Center; the film stars Pistol Takehara, Jun Fubuki, Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi, and TV, film, and music favorite Joe Odagiri.

“‘Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux’ is a richly thematic series celebrating the rise, fall, and rebirth of the Japanese family,” Japan Society director of film Peter Tatara said in a statement. “Showcasing films from across the past sixty-five years, audiences will find an ever-evolving image of what family means in Japan, and the universally human sorrow and joys at its core.”

Below are select reviews from the series.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s STILL WALKING is a special film about a dysfunctional family that should not be missed

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking is a special film that honors such Japanese directors as Naruse, Ozu, and Imamura

STILL WALKING (ARUITEMO ARUITEMO) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008)
Japan Society
Thursday, February 15, 7:00
japansociety.org

Flawlessly written, directed, and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters, After Life), Still Walking follows a day in the life of the Yokoyama family, which gathers together once a year to remember Junpei, the eldest son who died tragically. The story is told through the eyes of the middle child, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), a forty-year-old painting restorer who has recently married Yukari (Yui Natsukawa), a widow with a young son (Shohei Tanaka). Ryota dreads returning home because his father, Kyohei (Yoshio Harada), and mother, Toshiko (Kirin Kiki), are disappointed in the choices he’s made, both personally and professionally, and never let him escape from Junpei’s ever-widening shadow. Also at the reunion is Ryota’s chatty sister, Chinami (You), who, with her husband and children, is planning on moving in with her parents in order to take care of them in their old age (and save money as well).

Over the course of twenty-four hours, the history of the dysfunctional family and the deep emotions hidden just below the surface slowly simmer but never boil, resulting in a gentle, bittersweet narrative that is often very funny and always subtly powerful. The film is beautifully shot by Yutaka Yamazaki, who keeps the camera static during long interior takes — it moves only once inside the house — using doorways, short halls, and windows to frame scenes with a slightly claustrophobic feel, evoking how trapped the characters are by the world the parents have created. The scenes in which Kyohei walks with his cane ever so slowly up and down the endless outside steps are simple but unforgettable. Influenced by such Japanese directors as Mikio Naruse, Yasujiro Ozu, and Shohei Imamura, Kore-eda was inspired to make the film shortly after the death of his parents; although it is fiction, roughly half of Toshiko’s dialogue is taken directly from his own mother. Still Walking is a special film, a visual and psychological marvel that should not be missed.

Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) has trouble facing his sudden unemployment in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata

TOKYO SONATA (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008)
Japan Society
Sunday, February 18, 7:00
japansociety.org

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, Tokyo Sonata serves as a parable for modern-day Japan. Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a simple family man, with a wife, Megumi (Kyōko Koizumi), two sons, Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and Kenji (Kai Inowaki), and an honest job as an administration director for a major company. When Ryuhei is suddenly let go — he is being replaced by much cheaper Chinese labor — he is so ashamed, he doesn’t tell his family. Instead, he puts on his suit every day and, briefcase in hand, walks out the door, but instead of going to work, he first waits on line at the unemployment agency, then at an outdoor food kitchen for a free lunch with the homeless — and other businessmen in the same boat as he is. Taking out his anger on his family, Ryuhei refuses to allow Kenji to take piano lessons and protests strongly against Takashi’s desire to join the American military. But then, on one crazy night — which includes a shopping mall, a haphazard thief (Koji Yakusho), a convertible, and some unexpected violence — it all comes to a head, leading to a brilliant finale that makes you forget all of the uneven missteps in the middle of the film, which is warmly photographed by Akiko Ashizawa and about a half hour too long anyway.

Kagawa (Sukiyaki Western Django, Tokyo!) is outstanding as the sad-sack husband and father, matched note for note by the wonderful pop star Koizumi (Hanging Garden, Adrift in Tokyo), who searches for strength as everything around her is falling apart. And it’s always great to see Yakusho, the star of such films as Kurosawa’s Cure, Shohei Imamura’s The Eel, Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, seen here as a wild-haired, wild-eyed wannabe burglar.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

REMEMBERING EVERY NIGHT

Chizu (Kumi Hyodo) tries to find her path in Yui Kiyohara’s Remembering Every Night

REMEMBERING EVERY NIGHT (Subete no yoru wo omoidasu) (Yui Kiyohara, 2022)
Film at Lincoln Center, EBM Film Center (FBT)
144 West Sixty-Fifth St. at Amsterdam Ave.
September 15-21 (two-for-one pricing with Our House)
www.filmlinc.org

Yui Kiyohara’s sophomore feature, Remembering Every Night, is a gentle, tender tale of loss and loneliness, of what can go missing in life.

An offbeat band rehearses in a park. Two children get their shuttlecock stuck in a tree. An elderly man can’t find his way home. An old woman gives a young acquaintance a bag of out-of-season mandarins. Cars travel on small roads and bigger streets.

A student pedals north on a two-way, six-lane thoroughfare as vehicles proceed in the opposite lane, soft, soothing music playing on the soundtrack. When those lanes are empty and the student is a mere blip, a series of cars move in the other direction, following the cyclist, but all in the center lane. The passage is lined on either side by lush green trees; in front, a city looms. It’s a beautiful metaphor for people looking to the past or heading straight into the future, as a group or individuals searching for their own paths as nature holds sway over the modern world.

The deeply poetic and comforting film unfolds over the course of one day, following three single women who live in Tama New Town, a Tokyo satellite city that opened in 1971 as Japan’s largest residential development and currently has a population of two hundred thousand.

Forty-four-year-old Chizu (Kumi Hyodo) is a kimono dresser trying to find a job. Thirty-three-year-old Sanae (Minami Ohba) works as a meter reader. And twenty-two-year-old Natsu (Ai Mikami) is finishing up at university.

Fumi (Guama Uchida) and Natsu (Ai Mikami) recall a friend in Remembering Every Night

Chizu gets a card in the mail announcing that friends have relocated and decides to pay them a visit after stopping off at an employment agency, where she is seeking fulfilling work involving a community component. It’s her birthday, but she has no one to celebrate with; she soon gets lost but doesn’t panic.

On her daily rounds walking around the apartment complexes, Sanae, who carries binoculars with her to look closer at nature, is told by an old woman that an elderly man, Mr. Takada (Tadashi Okujno), has gone missing. The old woman tells Sanae how much better it was years ago, when there’d be lots of parents picking up their kids and plenty of fun parties. “Nowadays, we rarely even see our neighbors. It’s quite sad,” she says.

In a park, Natsu dances by herself to music; in the distance, Chizu playfully mimics her movement, as if she’s dancing with her. Natsu then rides her bicycle to the house where a childhood friend of hers, Dai, used to live. Dai has passed away; Natsu offers Dai’s mother a receipt for photographs Dai took that are ready to be picked up, but the mother says Natsu should have the pictures instead.

Natsu and her best friend, Fumi (Guama Uchida), ride over to an exhibit of ancient figurines and pottery from forty-five hundred years ago that have been excavated from the area where Tama New Town is. Discussing time and memory, Fumi explains, “This area was well populated, wasn’t it?” She adds, “It was a new residential area back then. These artifacts were made by the previous inhabitants. The new people didn’t know that the figurines meant. No writing, no records of anything. Just these clay figurines. Yes, that’s all that’s left of them.” The implications are what will the current inhabitants leave behind, especially as they grow more separate from one another and communicate via cellphones, without handwritten letters and printed photos.

Remembering Every Night moves at the languid pace of life; no one is in a hurry to get anywhere. The three protagonists ride bicycles, take buses, and walk. They occasionally pass each other by without knowing it.

Writer-director Kiyohara, who lived in Tama New Town when she was a child, wrote the film during the pandemic, deciding to explore feelings of separation and isolation and the sudden physical distance between people. She and cinematographer Yukiko Iioka let the camera linger on its subjects, often for a few seconds after the characters have left the scene, making them equal with trees, buildings, and roads. Editor Azusa Yamazaki keeps cuts to a minimum in favor of long shots with relatively rare zooms, pans, and close-ups.

Hyodo, Ohba, and Mikami are wonderful as the three women, who could essentially be the same person at three different stages of life; when they do pass by each other, it’s as if their present is reflecting on their past and future. Their performances contribute to the film’s balance of the elegiac and the celebratory.

The soft, warm score is by Jon no son and ASUNA, the band in the park at the beginning of the film. Their easygoing attitude sets the tone for the narrative; when one member sees that her handheld Casio is missing a key, the drummer eagerly says, “Just play without it,” and she does, with an infectious laugh. They haven’t determined the setlist for their gig the next day and admit that their jam needs help; speaking about the last part of the song, one member says, “It’s missing in action.” The keyboardist says with a smile, “We need a search party for that third line.” Then one woman has to leave to go to work, and another has to go home because a repairman is coming by to fix his air conditioner.

It all serves as a prelude for what’s to come, how humans make do with what’s thrown at them, fix what needs to be fixed, and prosper more as a group than as isolated individuals. “We’ll be fine,” one of the band members says as the camera slowly pans away, gliding past someone exercising their hands on a bench, then focusing on trees and plants as the title comes onscreen and life goes on.

Remembering Every Night opens September 15 at Lincoln Center, which is offering a two-for-one deal with Kiyohara’s first film, 2017’s Our House, which deals with female friendship, a missing father, and parallel lives.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

KEANE: 4K RESTORATION

A 4K restoration of Keane, starring Damian Lewis, comes to Lincoln Center beginning August 19

KEANE (Lodge Kerrigan, 2004)
Film at Lincoln Center, Francesca Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Opens Friday, August 19
www.filmlinc.org
grasshopperfilm.com

Lodge Kerrigan’s remarkable third feature, Keane, is mesmerizing, always teetering on the brink of insanity. Damian Lewis, years before Homeland and Billions, stars as William Keane, whom we first meet as he rants and raves in the Port Authority, filled with anger, paranoia, and a twitchiness that immediately sets you on edge and never lets up. He is trying to figure out what went wrong when his daughter was abducted from the area, but he now acts like just another crazy at the bus depot. As he befriends a desperate woman (Gone Baby Gone’s Amy Ryan) and her daughter (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin), you’ll feel a gamut of terrifying emotions rush through your body. The cast also features such familiar faces as Liza Colón-Zayas, Christopher Evan Welch, Chris Bauer, Frank Wood, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and others in tiny roles.

With Keane, Kerrigan, who made a big indie splash with his 1993 debut, Clean, Shaven, has created a brilliant psychological film centered on one man’s obsession that will leave you emotionally and physically spent. Filmed on location in 35mm with a handheld camera (with only one shot per scene) and natural sound, Keane has a taut realism that will knock you for a loop. You’ll love this film, but it will also scare the hell out of you.

A selection of the 2004 New York Film Festival, Keane is back at Lincoln Center beginning August 19 in a brand-new 4K restoration supervised by Kerrigan and TV and film editor Kristina Boden; Lewis and Kerrigan — who has made only one film since Keane, 2010’s Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs), instead concentrating on directing episodes of such series as Homeland, The Killing, and The Girlfriend Experience — will participate in a Q&A following the 6:30 screening on August 20, moderated by Christopher Abbott.

CAMERA MAN: DANA STEVENS ON BUSTER KEATON

Bill Jr. (Buster Keaton) mimics his father, Bill Campbell (Ernest Torrence), in silent film classic

Who: Dana Stevens, Imogen Sara Smith
What: Screening and discussion about Buster Keaton
Where: Film at Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West Sixty-Fifth St.
When: Thursday, January 27, $15, 7:00
Why: “Steamboat Bill, Jr. may be [Buster] Keaton’s most mature film, a fitting if too-early farewell to his period of peak creative independence,” Slate film critic Dana Stevens writes. “Its relationship to the rest of its creator’s work has been compared to that of Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest.” Stevens gets serious about the Great Stone Face, one of silent film’s best comics, in her brand-new book, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century (Atria, $29.99).

In celebration of the launch of the tome, Stevens will be at Lincoln Center’s Francesca Beale Theater on January 27 at 7:00 to screen a 4K restoration of the 1928 classic, directed by Charles Reisner, about a riverboat battle and true love, preceded by a 2K restoration of Keaton and Edward F. Cline’s twenty-five-minute masterpiece, One Week, about a pair of newlyweds (Keaton and Sybil Seely) and their unusual new home. (Both films feature orchestral scores by American composer Carl Davis.) Stevens will put Keaton’s life and work in sociocultural context with Criterion contributor Imogen Sara Smith, author of Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy. If you’ve never seen Keaton on the big screen, now is the time, as no one could turn tragedy into comedy quite like Keaton.

FRANCE

Léa Seydoux is radiant as a famous journalist facing a crisis in Bruno Dumont parable France

FRANCE (Bruno Dumont, 2021)
Film at Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, Francesca Beale Theater
144/165 West Sixty-Fifth St. at Amsterdam Ave.
www.filmlinc.org

“Doing harm once doesn’t mean you’ll keep doing it. That said, if you don’t think someone can change. . . . You believe in nothing. Everyone can change,” an interview subject (Annick Lavieville) tells star television journalist France de Meurs (Léa Seydoux) in Bruno Dumont’s overstuffed social satire, France. The film’s title refers not only to the reporter but to the country itself, as de Meurs’s experiences are supposed to mimic those of the republic’s, although it’s not always clear how.

The film opens with France playing gotcha with President Emmanuel Macron at a press conference; reveling in her attack question, she makes funny faces with her producer, Lou (Blanche Gardin), as if Macron’s answers don’t matter. And indeed they don’t; on her flashy news show, A View of the World, the fearlessly ambitious France creates her own reality, whether it’s manipulating a meeting in the mountains with a Tuareg chief (Youannes Mohammed) battling ISIS jihadists, disregarding fans wanting autographs, hosting political debates on her program, or giving short shrift to her husband, Fred (Benjamin Biolay), and their young son, Jojo (Gaëtan Amiel). She is dismissive, cynical, selfish, and self-serving, as it’s all about the optics and furthering her furious need to succeed.

We might not like her — in fact, we might despise her, which is part of the point, as she represents the state of contemporary media — but every once in a while she lets some actual humanity seep in. When she accidentally injures a man named Baptiste (Jawad Zemmar), she seems genuinely concerned, as he is the sole support for his immigrant parents (Noura Benbahloouli and Abdellah Chadouat). But the North African family is so in awe that such a famous person is visiting them and trying to help, even though she caused the accident and injury, that they refuse to accept any money from her. It presages a later accident that will change her life in a very different way.

Written and directed by Dumont (Camille Claudel 1915, La Vie de Jésus), France keeps the viewer at a distance, perhaps just like the country does. Cinematographer David Chambille’s camera adores Seydoux (The French Dispatch, No Time to Die, Blue Is the Warmest Color), whether she’s dressed in glamorous outfits or wearing military gear in the middle of a firefight. Her shoulder-length blond hair and ruby-red lipstick light up the screen even when she is staring off into the distance, deep in thought that she is likely never to reveal, or perhaps even fully understand herself. France is like an old-fashioned movie star as the film comments on cinema itself in a digital age of reality television and the twenty-four-hour cycle of biased and fake news.

Lou (Blanche Gardin) and France de Meurs (Léa Seydoux) prepare to manipulate their next story in France

Dumont also takes on the social order. “The golden age of nations is over. Nations have lost their authority for good,” a speaker tells guests at a fundraiser. Talking about capitalism, redemption, and salvation, a man at France’s table says, “Believe me, we must give, we must give and keep giving. You won’t run out of money, we’re so rich. To die well, one must die poor. Once you’re dead, your kindness will remain.” But all of the kindness may have already been drained out of de Meurs, without her even realizing it.

The relationship between de Meurs and Lou evokes that of Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) and Susie (Alex Bornstein) on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but here the pair of women are so unpleasant that you don’t want to see them together too much. And by the time we’re supposed to at last feel some sympathy and concern for France, it’s too late.

“France is sad,” a man says at one point. He could be referring to the country, the character, or the film itself.

BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN: A SKETCH FOR A POSSIBLE FILM

Emi (Katia Pascariu) goes on a strange journey in Rade Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN: A SKETCH FOR A POSSIBLE FILM (BABARDEALA CU BUCLUC SAU PORNO BALAMUC) (Radu Jude, 2021)
Film at Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, Francesca Beale Theater
144/165 West Sixty-Fifth St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St.
Opens Friday, November 19
www.filmlinc.org
filmforum.org

Radu Jude’s brilliantly absurdist Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn lives up to its title, a wildly satiric takedown of social mores that redefines what is obscene. Winner of the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2021 Berlinale, the multipart tale begins with an extremely graphic prologue, a XXX-rated homemade porn video with a woman and an unseen man holding nothing back. In the first main section, the woman, a successful teacher named Emi (Katia Pascariu), is distressed to learn that the video is threatening to go viral. She determinedly walks through the streets of Bucharest, buying flowers (which she holds upside down), discussing her dilemma with her boss, the headmistress (Claudia Ieremia), and calling her husband, Eugen, trying to get the video deleted before her meeting with angry parents at the prestigious private school where she teaches young children.

Jude and cinematographer Marius Panduru follow the masked Emi — the film was shot during the pandemic, so masks are everywhere — on her journey, the camera often lingering on the scene well after Emi has left the frame, focusing on advertising billboards, couples in the middle of conversations, people waiting for a bus, and other random actions, before finding Emi again. She sometimes fades into the background, barely seen through the windows of a passing vehicle or amid a crowd crossing at a light. She gets into an argument with a man who has parked on the sidewalk, blocking her way; she insists that he move the car, but he unleashes a stream of misogynistic curses. Swear words are prevalent throughout the film, mostly adding poignant humor.

The second segment consists of a montage of archival and new footage that details some of Romania’s recent history, involving the military, the government, religion, fascism, Nazi collaboration, patriotism, the two world wars, the 1989 revolution, Nicolae Ceaușescu, domestic violence, jokes about blondes, and the value of cinema itself. The bevy of images also points out which NSFW word is most commonly looked up in the dictionary, as well as which is second. (The film is splendidly edited by Cătălin Cristuțiu, with a fab soundtrack by Jura Ferina and Pavao Miholjević.)

It all comes together in the third section, in the school garden, where Emi faces a few dozen masked, socially distanced, very angry parents and grandparents who want her fired immediately, while the headmistress demands a calm discussion. The masked Emi is a stand-in for all of us, facing the wrath of the unruly mob forcing its sanctimonious platitudes on others when it really needs to look at itself. It’s a riotously funny sitcomlike debate in which Jude roasts many common, hypocritical beliefs held by Romanians (and people all over the world) that have not necessarily changed much from the news clips shown in the previous part.

The cartoonish cast, which includes Olimpia Mălai as Mrs. Lucia, Nicodim Ungureanu as Lt. Gheorghescu, Alexandru Potocean as Marius Buzdrugovici, and Andi Vasluianu as Mr. Otopeanu, really gets to strut its stuff while making sure their masks are properly covering their mouths and noses. They argue about beloved national poet Mihai Eminescu and Russian writer Isaac Babel, delve into various sexual positions, repeat Woody the Woodpecker’s trademark call, and quote long, intellectual passages from the internet as Jude (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, Aferim!) reveals where society’s true obscenities lie. It’s an irreverent tour de force that offers three distinct endings to put a capper on the strangely alluring affair, turning a scary mirror on the sorry state of twenty-first-century existence.

Playfully subtitled A Sketch for a Possible Film in a reference to André Malraux’s description of Eugène Delacroix’s belief that his sketches could be of the same quality as his paintings, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Romania’s official Oscars submission, opens November 19 at Lincoln Center and Film Forum.