12:08 East of Bucharest (2006)

Wonderful character development!

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

A history teacher, a widower and TV host walk into a television studio...it sounds like the setup to a punchline, and in many ways, it is. That's more or less the basic premise of Corneliu Porumboiu's breakout 2006 film, "12:08 East Of Bucharest." The Camera d'Or and Label Europa Cinemas winner at Cannes put the filmmaker on the international map where he has continued to gain notice, thanks to 2009's "Police, Adjective" and this year's "When Evening Falls On Bucharest Or Metabolism". But even seven years later, '12:08' still sustains as an exciting and carefully calibrated work, a film that led the charge of recent Romanian cinema."12:08 East Of Bucharest" screened as part of The Film Society Lincoln Center's Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema series. It runs from November 29th through December 10th.A history teacher, a widower and TV host walk into a television studio...it sounds like the setup to a punchline and in many ways, it is. That's more or less the basic premise of Corneliu Porumboiu's breakout 2006 film, "12:08 East Of Bucharest." The Camera d'Or and Label Europa Cinemas winner at Cannes put the filmmaker on the international map where he has continued to gain notice, thanks to 2009's "Police, Adjective" and this year's "When Evening Falls On Bucharest Or Metabolism". But even seven years later, '12:08' still sustains as an exciting and carefully calibrated work, a film that led the charge of recent Romanian cinema.Running just a shade under ninety minutes, little goes to waste in Porumboiu's taut, lean but very patient film. The first half of the picture introduces us to the three men whose lives will on converge later on. First, there's Tiberiu Manescu (Ion Sapdaru), an alcoholic history teacher who, when he isn't being hen-pecked by his wife, is trying to manage the various debts he owes to people around town. Then there's Emanoil Piscoci (Mircea Andreescu), an elderly widower who has reluctantly agreed to play the neighborhood Santa Claus. Lastly, there's Virgil Jderescu (Teodor Corban), owner of a TV station with his own talk show, who is cheating on his wife, all while trying desperately to put together his next episode, which he wants to focus on the 16th anniversary of the Romanian Revolution that ousted Nicolae Ceausescu.Certainly, '12:08' doesn't shy away from the grim reality of its setting. Like many of his contemporaries, Porumboiu favors an often stationary camera and long takes, here the graying and faded dirty blue of the apartments, streets and buildings the drama takes place in are unadorned. The rather miserable rut all three lead characters have found their lives shuffled into, and the nearly surreal and absurd world in which they exist are given ample time as well, with '12:08' unhurriedly creating a rich texture in which to set up what becomes an assuming, bravura finale that is both hilariously deadpan and quietly poetic all at once.As the threads of the story are slowly drawn together, the final stretch of '12:08' takes place entirely during the broadcast of Jderescu's rather amateur talk show, where both Manescu and Piscoci have been rounded up as guests. The topic? Was there or wasn't there a revolution on December 22, 1989. The point of contention for Jderescu is whether the Romanian Revolution can truly be called that, if the population only rushed out into the streets after Ceausescu was deposed. It seems like a measure of semantics, and an almost moot point to be dwelling on—and it kind of is—but Porumboiu uses that launching pad and these characters to dive into the complexity, beauty and complications of social and political change. 12:08 East Of BucharestEven as Jderescu's supposedly serious discussion takes place on camera, Porumboiu quickly makes it clear that it's an argument without substance. With a malfunctioning tripod, operated by a cameraman utilizing crude zooms and cuts, almost every moment of the film's final section —presented as a "live" TV broadcast—finds Jderescu's insistence at trying to get to the "truth" behind his question regarding the revolution belittled. But the sharp writing by Porumboiu, and the wonderfully underplayed performances of all three eventually find a more potent conclusion emerging that's left to linger about the in-the-moment purity of new ideas and shifts in power that wind up being soiled by the day-to-day reality of living and making ends meet.Filled with imagery both moving and mordant (a sequence of a Romanian big band ripping through a Latino song is fantastic), "12:08 East Of Bucharest" doesn't pretend to have a position on the fallout of the Romanian Revolution. Instead it contends that different questions need to be asked and considered about post-Communist life, about the blame about the current state of the country, and where the future lies for Romania's youth.

My motivation to watch this film is a bit weird. The Leninist system and its aftermath fascinate me, and therefore I often buy films about this subject. So when I saw the DVD "12:08 east of Bucharest", with a hammer and sickle on the cover and a short text about the revolution of 1989, I yielded to the temptation. However, the narrative is actually about Romanian people in a provincial town, whose sole experience with the revolution have been the TV images from Bucharest. The characters are neither Leninists nor rebels, but plain and common people. There is a teacher suffering from alcoholism, an aged man, and a TV producer, who used to work in the textile industry. Their behavior and situations are moving but mainly trivial. Even the TV producer, despite his obvious arrogance, is likable in the struggle for the survival of his channel. If you try to identify the legacy of Leninism in this community, it is perhaps the helplessness of the main characters. In addition there is the disconsolateness of the town, and its houses, buildings and roads - although of course these saddening shots may just be the deliberate selection of the film director. There is some mild humor, like the shopping of the aged man for a (red) Santa Claus suit. Christmas - the holiday in which neither the past nor the future is of as much interest as the present. Or the Chinese friend of the drunk teacher. He drinks to make other people interesting. When he read about the evils of drinking, he gave up reading. However, the dominant message of the story seems to be the apathy and indifference with respect to the revolution, even though it has freed the people from a long lasting dictatorship. The world is full of apathy, but so what? The target group of the film is probably the Romanian people, who are invited to reflect on it, and cope with it. Foreigners may feel grateful for the freedom and democracy, that they enjoy. That's all, folks!

Porumboiu's film is extremely funny (in a very Romanian way), and it's also very realistic. It's like I know all those crazy characters... The old man saying "It was better in the communist regime", most of the people calling just because they can and not because they have something important to say... I was very fond of the history teacher and I kept hoping that someone would call to rehabilitate him... I felt like they were stealing the most important moment of his life, his minutes of glory. He didn't have any witnesses to his presence there. And you know what happens: people with common sense, even alcoholics, they don't think they should defend themselves for something they did... and he said simply that he was there. his only friend, the Chinese shop-owner, tried to defend him, but was rejected by the rich guy, in a very prejudiced kind of way, that we see here so much... I found myself knowing that it was true... he was there before 12.08, and there was a revolution in that town, thanks to the four teachers. I guess everybody has to decide what he believes. I believe good people like Manescu never get a lucky break i this country, they are just considered suckers. And rich guys know how to manipulate people around them, like Bejan, the former secret service guy. (By the way, every member of the secret service said they were on holiday, just like Bejan). I hope Porumboiu makes us another good movie very soon!

This is a lovely, gentle satire that comes across even to Westerners who know next to nothing of Romanian politics and must be exquisitely rich to Romanians themselves. There's a lovely air of the quiet desperation that Thoreau claimed informed the lives of the majority. The setting is a small town in Romania where the owner of a small television station (he has a staff of one, reminiscent of those ubiquitous one-man radio stations in thirties America) is obliged to telephone invitees from his home to ascertain if he can rely on them to show up for his talk-show and then has to use his beat-up car to take them there. For his talk show this December 22nd he has opted to pose the question was there a revolution in THIS small town BEFORE 12:08 on this day in 1989. The fact this this is the SIXTEENTH anniversary of the downfall of Nicolae Ceaucescu and not a rounder number like 20th also smacks of desperation. To debate this with the Host/Station owner Virgil Jderescu (Teodor Corban) are History teacher and serious alcoholic Tiberiu Manescu (Ion Sapdaru) and a retired Santa Claus Emanoil Piscoci (Micea Andreescu) and for good measure the audience are encouraged to telephone with live on-air comments. On paper this is not exactly riveting stuff but writer director Corniliu Porumboiu proves adept at capturing the quirkiness and small-time score settling of, presumably, a small Romanian town. In some ways it is reminiscent of The Fireman's Ball with the same Eastern-European flavored humor and observation. I'll certainly buy the DVD once it becomes available.