Tuesday, After Christmas – Marti, dupa craciun (2010)

Directed by: Radu Muntean | 97 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Dragos Bucur, Maria Popistasu, Mimi Branescu, Mirela Oprisor, Victor Rebengiuc

Everyone knows them: the typical Christmas movies that are overloaded with lush snow showers, crackling fires and cozy gatherings. But all that is not really realistic: many people only look forward to Christmas, and it is the time of year when people most often switch their status back to ‘single’ on Facebook. How does the Romanian ‘Tuesday, After Christmas’, which despite its title only appears in Dutch theaters at the end of winter, fits into this ambiguity?

The film opens insidiously idyllically, with a sultry moment between two lovers, bathed in the warm light that can squeeze you out of the Romanian December sun. Yet something isn’t right. Isn’t that girl a lot younger than that man? And are they now talking about a wife and daughter?

The latter turns out to be correct: reality soon surfaced when the man, Paul (Mimi Branescu) reappears in the matrimonial home. The difference between the two couples could not have been greater, as the marriage between Paul and his wife Adriana (Mirela Oprisor) has completely extinguished. Any kind of caress is missing between the two.

You would almost understand that Paul takes his pleasure elsewhere with so much coldness, but the fact that ten years of marriage have also produced a daughter makes it that much more complicated. It soon happens that all four of these protagonists – half of whom know nothing about the affair – end up in the same room, to make it all extra uncomfortable. It produces a beautiful scene, in which the eruption is not forthcoming and the tension builds up well.

And yes, Christmas is just around the corner. With all the obligations that come with the holidays, it only becomes more difficult for Paul to find a way out of that most devilish of dilemmas: does he choose the dull, loyal wife or does he choose his playful, younger mistress Raluca (Maria Popistasu) ?

After that romantic opening scene, the remainder of the film is portrayed quite soberly, with static shots from quite a distance that Romanian filmmakers love today without exception. In addition to this dry style, the characters are not explored in depth, which makes it difficult to empathize with them to the extreme. On the other hand, this style ensures that when the bomb finally bursts and Mirela Oprisor can go wild with her Adriana, which is portrayed in an impressively raw way.

‘Tuesday, After Christmas’ does not tackle exciting new themes with this love triangle and at first sight lacks a groundbreaking artistic vision to really stand out. It is, however, left open in the end so delicately that the film is thought-provoking in a very subtle way. Because once such a bomb bursts, it doesn’t say much about how the shards are picked up.

Because of this, ‘Tuesday, After Christmas’ still gnaws for a while and the film is slightly better than average. It doesn’t quite measure up to the more astonishing exponents of contemporary Romanian cinema, such as a film like ’12:08 East of Bucharest’ – which is briefly mentioned in this film – or ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’. . Nevertheless, ‘Tuesday, After Christmas’ is an entertaining film with enough subtle delights to be worth watching.