Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn – Babardeala cu bucluc sau porn balamuc (2021)

Directed by: Radu Jude | 106 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Katia Pascariu, Claudia Ieremia, Olimpia Malai, Nicodim Ungureanu, Alexandru Potocean, Andi Vasluianu, Oana Maria Zaharia, Gabriel Spahiu, Florin Petrescu, Stefan Steel

Your sex life is on the street. That happens faster these days than you can pronounce the title of this Romanian film. For a long time now it is no longer about videotapes that turn up somewhere in a local shady video store, but about potentially massive and lightning-fast distribution via the internet. Then, if it becomes public property, it can destroy lives. In ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’, teacher Emi makes a sex video with her husband, which inadvertently ends up online in a roundabout way and soon in the hands of students. In no time this leads to great consternation among parents. These demand a meeting to decide Emi’s fate. Can she stay on as a teacher of innocent children after this video?

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn starts with a very clumsy and at times hilarious sex video. Obviously this turns out to be the offending video that a whole lot of others in the movie fall for. In addition, these recordings are quite explicit. But now it’s in a movie? So, what are the movie viewers watching? Also porn? The question may also arise: how real is this? Is this really Katia Pascariu, who plays Emi, in this video? Or are these professional porn actors playing like they’re making a sex video for the first time? If so, does this make this cinematic choice any less obscene? This is exactly where director Radu Jude wants you: to question the world and its relationship to film. Jude also attacks the prevailing norms and values ​​in Romanian, or Western, society.

After the sex video as a prologue, the first chapter of ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ continues in the neo-realistic film tradition: lots of longshots, real locations and use of natural light. At the same time, the film shows the struggle of the New Wave movements with the same realism until it becomes almost comical. The camera follows Emi almost constantly. While on the phone, she bustles through Bucharest and tries to oversee and limit the consequences surrounding her video. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the camera shows an old abandoned building or a wimpy little man, who parks his gigantic American car on a zebra crossing. This kind of visually comic aside makes ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ whimsical, but also interesting and stimulating.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is not only about the moral side of things, but also about how film is a fabulous construction. With, among other things, three different endings for the story and a photo montage, Jude forces the viewer to think about the artificial side of this medium. This contemplative approach shows strong similarities with how film was approached by the Swiss filmmaker Jean Luc Godard, one of the fathers of the French film movement nouvelle vague. According to Godard, cinema offers the opportunity to look at the world of images in a kaleidoscopic way. Film by definition therefore only refers to other films for Godard. His films can therefore be regarded as essays that engage in conversation through image and sound. While Jude’s other films aren’t necessarily talking to each other, “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” certainly thanks its postmodernist predecessors.

In addition, lead actress Pascariu plays very strong as Emi in ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’. She knows how to strike a balance between seriousness and comedy. Most supporting characters, on the other hand, are caricatured, especially those of the concerned parents. However, this is also part of the satirical undertone. Moreover, the characters are sharp, a bit like in “The lice mother” (AVROTROS, 2018-19), but more absurd and villainous.

It’s still quite strange that some critics consider ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ to be part of the Romanian New Wave, because that is years behind us. Nevertheless, more good films than bad films come from this offspring of the now canonical nouvelle vague film genre. Also ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ is clearly on the good side of the Romanian version. With this film, director Jude also shows the pleasure he has in making an aesthetic mess of the audience and declaring it morally bankrupt. In addition, this razor-sharp satire makes good use of meta-cinema in the spirit of Godard, but in a less didactic way than the master himself.

However, who cares that a Berlinale winner from Romania is much more challenging than almost anything you see on the big or small screen these days. If all the superfluous chatter is cut out, ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ might as well be a movie on a free-to-access sex website. After all, everything in the age of the internet, the ultimate filthy and ever-mutating encyclopedia, is potentially slapstick, as is your sex life going viral.