4 Stars

Nearly 20 years after the Romania New Wave took international cinema by storm with such titles as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, and 12:08 East of Bucharest, Romanian provocateur Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn) carries on Romania’s new wave satirical traditions with Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. A highly amusing, artful, playful, innovative, and sharply satirical romp that sizzles with many brilliant ideas on the issues facing modern-day Romania.

The film’s style is breathtaking and overflows with a great deal of piquancy. Just as he did with Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn, Jude’s latest film is very Godardian in its experimental approach. It’s jittery, fragmented, and filled with various aesthetics, textures, and tones. The film’s narrative unravels with many ideas and unfolds with many interruptions, and we see Jude experiment with the power of the image as we see film stock from an older Romanian film that’s juxtaposed with the narrative in this film that is shot in grainy black and white. Jude also utilizes other images in the film that consist of zoom screens, 4K/8K cameras, and he even live streams TikTok videos that all highlight the plight and degradation of modern Romania. A country that rose out of draconian communism nearly 35 years ago only to find its citizens still in despair from being overworked and underpaid as corporations profit off human misery.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2024)

Courtesy Mubi Films

I was fully prepared for what I was getting myself into in this film; having watched Jude’s previous work certainly helped, though I never knew where it was going up until the remarkable final stretch of the film, which consists of a locked-off, behind-the-scenes shot of a family that is disclosing their unsafe working conditions to a hired film crew on how workers are exploited. However, compromises are to be found as they are paid by the corporation to downplay their experiences by turning the experience into more of a cautionary “training video.” The final shot surprisingly never gets tedious, but for nearly 40 minutes it remains dramatically charged and gripping as you realize this is the modern world we live in that sadly affects so many nations and economic systems.

The film’s main character is Angela (Ilinca Manolache), a hardworking and sleep-deprived Uber driver and production assistant for a corporate video company located in Bucharest. She works about 18 hours a day; she’s always on the go, and during her spare time, she blows off steam on Tik-Tok videos with her hilarious imitations of Andrew Tate, a vile, sexist, and misogynistic social media personality. During these livestream videos, Angela mocks Tate’s behavior, where he always sexualizes women and uses Alt-Right vernacular that is sympathetic towards Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Victor Orbon, who are all discussed and referenced in the film. Jude uses this point to explore how this demoralization, which consists of rampant individualism, division, conspiracy theories, toxicity, and other forms of active measures that Russia and now certain political sectors of the West have spread across Europe in part through technology and social media personalities, Throughout the film, we see Angela being harassed and verbally assaulted by men. Even when she drives men yell out sexual slurs at her. This causes her to be stressed, on top of the many hours as to wait patiently for her pay. She uses her Tik-Tok videos as a coping mechanism to ridicule the absurdity of the outside world.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2024)

Courtesy Mubi Films

Angela’s production company is hired to do some short-term contract work for an Austrian company that is responsible for many work injuries and unsafe work conditions. They are also responsible for being a driver of deforestation and forest degradation in Romania. The company ends up flying out Doris Goethe (Nina Hoss), the company’s marketing, in which Angela and Doris have a superbly scripted exchange in the car after Angela picks them up from the airport, where they discuss many of the issues facing Romania. Doris rationalizes her complicity by using the Zen belief of just going with the flow. During the most engaging moment of the conversation, Angela describes how she loses time of her day by driving around a very dangerous road, which has led to thousands of fatal car accidents due to a lack of funding and government planning. Jude tops it off with a silent and melancholic montage of still images of the actual roadside crosses of the people who tragically died in the accidents.

The company wants Angela and her crew to create a safety video that encourages its workers to wear safety equipment and to take safety measures. Angela is given the task of interviewing the injured workers to be in the video that is going to pay the disabled workers well, but they must take the blame other than the companies. Angela drives around looking for the disabled workers, and the company will choose one of their disabled workers, who will get paid a large sum of money for their testimonial. When not stressed, Angela gets to swindle on a movie set that is being directed by German director Uwe Boll (playing himself), in which they discuss how he boxes his critics who have dismissed his films.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

Courtesy Mubi Films

Through this narrative, Jude juxtaposes scenes from an older Romanian film from the early 1980s titled Angela Moves On, which stars veteran Romanian actress Dorina Lazar, who also plays an overworked taxi driver named Angela who falls in love with one of her passengers during the era of Communist President and dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. This very much reminded me of the way Steven Soderbergh intercut images of a young Terrence Stamp in Ken Loache’s Poor Cow, and Claire Denis had the same approach in The Intruder, where we saw images of Paul Gegauff’s LeRlux that showed a younger Michael Stubor. Jude uses fragments of the films sprinkled throughout the film; the result feels romanticized, and we see Dorina Lazar appear in the film in the present-day section of the film, but she is much older, and her son is in a wheelchair and is interviewed and gets the gig to be in the training video.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is one of those films that must be seen to believe for its experimental audacity, its satire, and power. It really is a film of rich artistry and fragmented beauty. It’s quite possible that Radu Jude has out Godard Jean-Luc Godard here while still having his own singular voice. Jude has a fervid vision and he’s zealous with his aesthetic juxtapositions and ideas that perfectly evokes the uncertainty or rather absurdity of our era. As T.S. Elliot once wrote “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.” This film reflects that tenor and does so without taking itself too seriously and the result is fascinating.

DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD opens in limted Theaters Friday, March 22nd. It opens in Detroit on Friday, April 19th and plays through Sunday, April 21st at the Detroit Film Theatre. For tickets and showtimes please visit Don’t Expect Too Much From the End of the World | Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (dia.org)