12:08 East of Bucharest (DVD)

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I haven´t really gotten a taste of Romanian cinema before, but the country has recently given me plenty to feast on. There was the darkly comical The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, a scathing look at the Romanian health care system, and the recent abortion drama, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. In between those two great films is the satire, "12:08 East of Bucharest," which made fellow staff member Christopher Long´s Top 10 List for 2007. The three films have formed a triumvirate of what some critics have been calling a Romanian New Wave. Each film has had a strong presence at the Cannes Film Festival with "Bucharest" winning the Camera D´Or prize in 2006 and "4 Months" winning the Palme D´or last year.

In late December of 1989, the Romanian people rose up against dictator, Nicolae Ceasusescu, one of the last Communist leaders still clinging to the crumbling iron curtain. The riots began in Bucharest when Ceasusescu was giving a televised speech to quell growing unrest following a student revolt in the city of Timisoara. Revolution spread like wildfire as Ceasusescu fled the city via helicopter. Writer/Director Corneliu Porumboiu makes his feature-length debut with a film about a talk show attempting to mark the sixteenth anniversary of those events. Porumboiu was inspired to make "12:08" after watching a similar show in his hometown of Vaslui. The fictional show of the film is called "Issue of the Day" and is hosted by Virgil Jderescu (Teodor Corban), who asks the hard hitting question of whether or not a revolution took place in their town. The film´s original Romanian title is in fact, "A fost sau n-a fost?", which roughly translates to "Was There or Wasn´t There?"

Jderescu´s two guests are Tiberiu Manescu (Ion Sapdaru), a history professor and professional drunkard, and Emanoil Piscoci (Mircea Andreescu), affectionately dubbed "Old Man Piscoci" because of his penchant for dressing up as Santa for the kids during Christmas. The first half of the film follows each of the characters as they go about their daily routines while gearing up for the big broadcast. Jderescu has a case of the jitters, his wife nags him about his daughter who needs money for a ski trip, and he has a mistress on the side in the form of one the reporters working for his network. We meet Manescu as he wakes up on his living room couch after tying one on the night before. From there, Manescu goes to work, presiding over a group of flunking students, retaking an exam. Evidently, indifference to education is an international language. Neither the students nor Manescu care that much about the testing. Manescu doesn´t bother with any inspirational "Dead Poets Society" speeches, he just laments, "You can´t even cheat properly." When a fellow teacher walks in, it isn´t so he can chastise Manescu´s lackadaisical teaching methods, it´s so he can get back the money he borrowed. Manescu engages in a never ending cycle of debt, borrowing to pay back those he already borrowed from. Piscoci is a last-minute substitute for another guest who decided to cancel. Piscoci spends his morning getting ready to play Santa. He complains about how crappy his first suit is and deals with obnoxious neighborhood kids lighting up fireworks outside his apartment.