Radu Jude often is a filmmaker that has no interest in masking his anger and frustrations with nuance and delicately crafted metaphors hidden beneath more delicately crafted metaphors. And although Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn has some smartly layered observations and discussions, it works best when it consistently finds itself hurling mud back towards the vulgar hypocrisy of Romania’s past and present - something Jude has often addressed and confronted in his works, drawing attention to his homeland’s icky relationship with racism, sexism and violence. The plot is simple: Emi, a history teacher at a prestigious school in Bucharest, finds her reputation in shambles as she deals with the aftermath of her private sex tape being leaked online.
Radu Jude has no intention of focusing solely on the internal and external problems facing Emi, what he looks to do is contextualize and explore what is happening in the world and its society around her. But this isn’t just a film about the hypocrisy of one nation, it is easily relatable anywhere within our current cultural landscape - unpacking where we were, where we are currently, and where we continue to be heading. It’s a film that doesn't look to be uplifting in any way, and like Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, 2021’s other angry, in-your-face movie event of the year, there seems to be no real hope in sight.
Jude doesn’t follow any narrative traditions for Bad Luck Banging, dividing the film into three distinct parts as well as providing us with three alternate endings. With each part, we are provided the same recurring themes addressed and challenged in vastly different ways to further amplify the ideas and intentions of Bad Luck Banging’s purpose. If there even is one to begin with. Our storytelling instincts want us to focus solely on Emi’s journey and how she overcomes the internal and external demons facing her, but Jude demands that we focus on what’s around her instead. Context is important and it allows us to get just as angry as the director and Emi, prepping us for Part 3's endurance test. Jude also wants to blindside us and subvert any and all expectations one would expect from a scandal-driven narrative feature. The subtitle of the film is “Sketch for a Popular Film”. And that is just what Bad Luck Banging essentially is: a sketch piece of what appears to be a pile of annoyed notes and observations from not just its filmmaker but that of Emi’s character as well. Sex, scandal and violence. What more could you want in a popular, mainstream film, right?
Introducing us to Emi via her very explicit, and real, sex tape in the opening moments of the film isn’t used just for shock value. It obviously creates important context for the events that follow, but what it means in relation to the purpose and filmmaking methods found within Part 1 is far more intelligent than just raunchy sex. As mentioned before, Jude is more interested in exploring the hypocrisy and double standards that surround Emi before giving us a real chance to delve deeper into her character. Wandering the streets of Bucharest, Jude opts for a cinéma vérité style within this film’s opening chapter: observing Emi from afar as she walks from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, each one varying differently in its buildings, shops, people, cars, billboards, etc. – painting a textured portrait that further enriches itself through the context of its own world. Emi does the odd thing here and there that pushes her story towards the events found in Part 3, as well as providing small insight into her internal thought process during a stressful time, but Jude is smart with his intentions in that he purposefully pulls us away from the protagonist. Emi walks towards and away from us, we pan with her but we almost always get preoccupied with something else in the frame. The sex tape never turns its eye away from its subject and the act of sex, but over here, the camera gets bored and quickly loses sight of Emi. After all, what's more intimate than seeing your protagonist literally bare all in the film's opening scene? Been there, done that. Time to move on. It’s as if she doesn’t matter to us anymore as she seems to blend into the woodwork now. If it wasn’t for the tape, would we even care if we saw this stranger walking in the street? Someone who appears to be like everyone else? The lens turns and focuses on the absurd that’s happening within its environment instead: flashes of gaudy wealth, aggressive strangers, an endless stream of buzzing signs and product placements, religion’s consistent presence, a pandemic, etc. There is no more sex. We're bored. So what else can we look at?
Although Part 1 adds some context to the narrative going forward, Part 2 puts Emi’s story on hold and functions as an essay on Romania, something that could easily be played on loop in an art installation. Part 2’s “Short Dictionary of Anecdotes” goes through each letter of the alphabet, relating its chosen word or subject to Romania’s past and present with pretty much all of it being negative, and understandably so (with exception to a funny moment of adoration for Romania’s cultural treasure and most famous poet in Eminescu). Bad Luck Banging feels like a constant take-down of Romania and everything wrong with it according to Radu Jude, and in this stretch of the film, he aims to have his argument heard, giving us micro-history lessons as well as random fun facts that are not strictly limited to Romania, but the rest of the world as well - further making the case that it’s not only Romania that is a fucked up mess, but the entire damn world. It showcases Bad Luck Banging’s limitless ability to keep us on our feet and surprise us at every turn. The constant found throughout this alphabet circles heavily around racism (particularly towards the Romany people), anti-Semitism, sex, perversion, violence, religion, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, etc. Almost every word or idea has a coat of the aforementioned themes and topics adorning it, provoking more anger in us as Jude provides further context for us going into Part 3, stocking us up on the ammo we will need to battle through it.
“Part 3: Praxis and Innuendos (Sitcom)” is the battle Radu Jude has been preparing both us and Emi for. But instead of this being a well-informed parent/teacher discussion on what to do about the situation regarding the scandal, turns into a tribunal weighted heavily and unfairly against Emi. This is where Jude constructs the discussions in the same manner as the comments section on every social media platform: a place where the smart, informed discussions and answers are lost under the volume of louder, dumber voices. Slut shaming, conspiracy theories and baseless arguments aim to tear us and Emi down. She just can’t seem to win, and it’s only a matter of time before she loses her shit, right? It’s Bad Luck Banging at its effective, most absurdist final form as every character is made distinguishable by their ridiculous outfits and overt personalities. There’s even a random sound-bite-type parent who chimes in with obnoxious yawns, buzz words and chants, even emulating Woody Woodpecker’s laugh as an appropriate response. It's incredibly annoying but completely effective in eliciting the same sense of irritation in us as it does for Emi.
As much as it sounds like Emi is doomed to fail from the very beginning, it finally gives us a chance to truly root for her, and that’s thanks to the smartly primed context of Parts 1 and 2 as Radu Jude has given us sufficient ammunition to join this fight with her. Katia Pascariu’s challenging performance is all the more impressive due to the structure and style of the film, but it's also having to evoke most of her character’s frustrations and nuanced expressions from behind a metaphorical and literal mask that makes her stand out even more. And although there is almost nothing subtle about Bad Luck Banging, her performance needs to be when everything around her is just so obscenely ridiculous. The weight of her voice and the tonal shifts of expression in her eyes keeps us guessing as to when and if she will ever explode and deliver her "I'm mad as hell" monologue a la Network and last year's Don't Look Up.
I loved the hell out of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, but it’s not a film I would easily recommend to anyone. It thrives on its inability to be subtle, a necessary antagonizer that may rub a lot of people the wrong way as it looks to provoke as often as it can. And despite describing the premise of the film’s three different parts as well as my take on each one’s purpose, it’s still impossible to predict what it’s going to do next. It’s an exasperating, bizarre, ugly, hilarious, scary, sobering, depressing and undeniably entertaining showcase into the wild mind of Radu Jude, who remains one of cinema's truly great provocateurs right now.
Where you can watch it: In select theatres and available to purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Vudu (USA), In select theatres and streaming on most VOD platforms (UK), In select Theatres (Australia)
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