Chapo Trap House - Movie Mindset Bonus: Interview With Director Radu Jude

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Will & Hesse talk to Radu Jude, the director of the new comedy feature Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. The film features an overworked production assistant as she drives around Bucharest shooting videos for a large multinational company as a satire of the malaise and indignity of modern life. Will, Hesse and Radu discuss the film’s send-up of TikTok masculinity influencers, the relationship with earlier films edited into the movie, the various versions of Romania Jude depicts and much more.. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is now in theaters and will be streaming on MUBI starting May 3.

Hello everybody, the movies are back. It's Hesse and Will here with Movie Mindset. And now listeners, if you've learned anything from listening to our show, it's that people who make movies are better than the rest of us. So we are thrilled for the first time ever on Movie Mindset to have an interview with one of the real people, the movie makers. It is my absolute privilege to welcome to the show the director and screenwriter of the new movie, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Radu Jude.

Radu, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thank you for this invitation and for these much too kind words. And yeah, I'm thrilled. Okay so if you haven't seen the movie pause now and watch the movie but if I could describe it in as brief a way as possible if the movie follows one day in the life of a harried and overworked production assistant as she drives around Bucharest casting injured factory workers to star in a workplace safety video for an evil Austrian conglomerate.

But Radu, your movie, it's very much about Romania. It's about advertising. It's about social media. It's about a lot of other things. But just to kick things off, Hesse recently was sort of accidentally treated to an algorithmically generated. She was treated to something that deals with both Romania, TikTok and advertising that we'd like to share with you now. Yeah, I am a frequent user of TikTok, unfortunately, and was flipping through my feet and I got an ad from the official TikTok account of Romania. And I just wanted to show you.

It's an old woman harvesting grass. I know these, yes. And I was wondering, do you think this is a good or accurate depiction of Romania? Or do you think that any scenes in this movie would be a better advertisement for Romania for the rest of the world? Well, you know, I have to answer seriously to your question because I believe that one

of the tricks that our language plays on us is to simplify everything. So we can say this is a portrait of Romania, and we can say answer yes or no. And in the same time, of course, we can understand it maybe as a symbol or as a kind of a metaphor or something like that. And from this point of view, yes, you can say that I can understand this

as a kind of a picture of a country or something else. From another perspective, you can understand all these things as being only language because what is a country in the end? It's just a kind of a fiction. You have some institutions and some people, some territories, some language, sometimes, not necessarily. And all this becomes a country or a nation or whatever. And it's just that this doesn't exist.

It's just an abstract concept in a way. So this is why I try to resist a little bit this language tricks because I don't know how to... I see them in a way, not only not accurate, but because I've always accused them or sometimes in Romania that I'm not patriotic enough or that I'm even against Romania, which is nonsense. But I think this comes also from the same kind of understanding of seeing these fiction things like a country or a nation or whatever in terms of substance like is something substantial there. So I kind of refrain from that.

It's like asking you if a meme or the Simpsons represent America or Donald Trump even represent America. The answer to those questions is yes. All those things do represent America perfectly. Radu, in reading about the reception to this movie as it's released in the United States, I think one of the things people react to most strongly is how firmly foregrounded in the abject shittiness of the present your movie is. But at the same time, I think that it's a little bit

more complicated than that, because a good deal of this movie is in like a literal dialogue with the past. And I'm wondering, could you talk about the inclusion of the Romanian film Angela Moves On and the pairing of the kind of your main character, Angela, with the character in this movie and how you sort of intercut this film throughout your film and create this kind of conversation between two characters and then two different Romanias. So for the people who haven't seen the film, it's about the fact that the film, my film has into it a constant cross cutting with the 1981 Romanian film, so a film made during Ceausescu's dictatorship.

And actually it has also other elements. And that's because I conceived the film as a kind of a collage, like a Rauschenberg collage, let's say, who's one of my heroes, Robert Rauschenberg. And like in a collage, the parts, each photo or each element has an importance, but what is more important is, let's say, the overall picture. Because in this case, of course, there was a dialogue

between past and present, and I will get to that in a second, but what is for me, let's say, much more important is this kind of continuous cinematic landscape where one film from the 1980 which is a fiction film can be seen as a documentary of sorts and trying to extract from it these documentary materials and in the same time then it becomes again a fiction when the characters from this film get into the new film so it's always a back and forth between documentary and fiction, which is also, I think, what this film is always proposing.

It's always proposing to see fictions as documents and to see the fiction part of the documentary images, so to speak. So, well, maybe there's more to talk about. But basically, this is the idea. I mean, well, the thing I was struck by is that in the 1981 film, the Angela in that film and the Angela in your film, their lives are sort of superficially similar in that they both their day to day life involves driving a car and being harassed by men. But at the same time, it really seems like they're living in two different universes.

Is that something you were aware of? Or like, I mean, how do you how do you respond to like that reaction? Oh, yes. But yeah, I completely agree with you in a certain way. In the same time, and I think maybe I haven't done it very well here because I think what is important is to see that the kind of sweet life or sweeter life the character had in the older film is just a fake construct of the propagandas more or less and this is I think that the film, which I also admire very much, Jay Hoberman, observed and nailed in his review. In the same time, because the director who made the film was kind of subversive,

despite the fact that it's just a very gentle, sweet film made to tranquil people, you can spot, and this is the details that I slowed down, you can see details which are more intriguing, like poverty details, which were not supposed to be let in by the propaganda of the time. So that's one of the reasons. And then, of course, the film of today or the part of today seems much more chaotic and much more dirty or hellish as you said before.

But also this is because, you know, I had at least we have real political freedom where you can address these things and nobody's going to punish you. A film like that made in 1901 would have been impossible in a certain way. So in a way, it's also this meta-political aspect about the film, if you want. You talk about that meta-political aspect and the majority of the film, which is shot in black and

white and takes place very much in the present moment. A detail that I picked up on in the movie was that Angela's ringtone is a ringtone version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which I initially thought was just part of the kind of gallows humor of the movie because every call she get is just completely miserable. But then I learned that the Ode to Joy is the official theme song of the EU. And I'm just wondering like that because like, you know, in under dictatorship, there isn't like the political freedom to make this movie. But the present day that you depict in this movie is unbelievably oppressive as like, you know, like the exploitation of Romania by Western European countries is like a huge part of this movie.

Yes, yes, this is true, but maybe in a way that needs to be a little bit adjusted, because I think, first of all, cinema has this possibility, I wouldn't say a duty, to concentrate on things which don't work, on things which are problematical, on the problems of people, on the problems of life. I don't know how to summarize it. But all the films I'm interested in, they are around the problem of some kind. So showing this film or making this film, I wanted to show that inside the EU, which as a side note, I think it's extremely beneficial

for Romania, the existence of EU, joining of EU is one of the most important thing, if not the most important thing that happened from Romania in the last 30 years. Despite of that, of course there are problems, there are a lot of things, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of bullshit, there's a lot of huge hypocrisy, there's a lot of inequalities, not only between individuals, but also between the nations inside the EU, although we are meant to be equal, etc. And I think, you know, before making the film, I had some hesitation to do it.

Why? Because all of these themes that I mentioned before, and the ones that you mentioned in your questions are usually addressed by the fascist parties or by the extremist parties. People who want to get out of EU, people who would want to forbid the LGBT rights, who would want to forbid the right to abortion, all these kinds of things which comes from a mix of

traditional ideas with Russian propaganda and with right-wing American propaganda, like that. So I hear this hesitation saying should I make this film and exposing or expressing some ideas which could be part of the fascist or the extreme right-wing people here. I thought that it's especially us, the people who still believe that the EU is important, who should address the problems inside the system. We shouldn't let the critique to the fascists in a way. So yeah, so this is the reason I made the film in the end. Well, as long as you're as long as you're discussing sort of a vulgar fascist ideology, a big part of this movie is the main character, Angela,

her sort of like acts of rebellion against her shitty overworked job involve this TikTok persona of Bobita. This humorous parody of like guys like Andrew Tate and like the rants that she does on TikTok are some of the funniest parts of this movie. They're like the highlight of the movie, in my opinion, because I think there's a little bit of Bobita inside all of us. Could you talk about like the genesis of this character and working with your lead actor? Was this a character that she had invented prior to the making of this movie? Yes. Ilinka Manolake is a theater actress mostly, and we collaborated previously for some smaller parts and it's true

that during the lockdown in the pandemic she started to create all kinds of characters on TikTok actually and one that stayed and she created as a kind of avatar of sorts was this Bobica, this kind of toxic, idiotic, exaggerated misogynist. And I loved it from the second I saw it, and I loved it even more when I noticed the criticism she received against it, especially from highbrow people from theater especially who would say well you know maybe this is not what a theater actress should do in her lockdown time or this is not she could maybe recite some Arthur Miller monologue or whatever and but she went on and actually other women joined with other avatars and it was for a while a kind of a big, I mean, maybe not very big, but among the people I know, everybody knew this

and then it disappeared. But at some point, what I liked the most about it, and this is why I asked the actress, I asked Ilinka to come with the avatar, so to speak, and to work together with this, was the fact that I think you cannot really pin it down how it is, because in the same time, she says, oh, it's my critique against, I don't know,

oppressive systems, patriarchy, et cetera, et cetera, which I think it is, but in the same time, it's done in such a way that you can easily accuse it of being the reverse of that. So it's somehow so much on the edge and so much depending on... So this is why it's so much troubling, I think, because in the same time, I really think it, is funny and exhilaratingly funny. Uh, and, and, and interesting from, from many points of view. And in the same time, you understand is something problematical there. It's something deeply questionable.

So, so I'm thinking it's, it's the same thing. Like I saw someone on, on, uh, on, uh, on the internet asking the others on a Facebook post, he said, is chat GPT or this kind of AI programs, is this to use them? Is it progressive or a reactionary practice? I think the question is quite stupid, but the man I think was really troubled because he, and I think you cannot answer completely to answer completely to his question, you know.

So it's the same thing in Mutat is Mutan, this way, with this avatar. And also I think the other aspect, and I think for me that was also very important, is how you define, I mean, this is... Because the film is also about image creation and about cinema in a way. It's a very circular film somehow. What does an image and what is a character? You know, it's a fiction film. So in fiction films you have stories, characters, etc. So what is a character?

Because you have this actress playing the woman in the film and the woman in the film and the woman in the film has another, plays another kind of character with this mask, with this digital avatar mask. So I think it's a kind of an interesting mizanabim of sorts about this question. Who is the character? Who is the actor? Who's the character? All these kind of things. Maybe it sounds too complicated for the listeners, but I really think it's a comedy. Yeah. You talk about, you think it's like, you want art that deals with the problems of day-to-day life and willing to let your viewers sit in how uncomfortable that is.

And I think about the Bobita character at the very end of this movie, in which it's like basically like the family of this injured worker are being cajoled by the film production company to omit the fact that the furniture factory he is working at is doing business with Russia. And then Bobita just hops on in the outside of the frame and says, I support Putin and his crusade against Nazis in Ukraine. That to me was one of the frame and says, I support Putin and his crusade against Nazis in Ukraine. That to me was one of the funniest parts of the movie. But once again, it's like this question of like, and someone says to Angela, are you worried about being thought of as a Putinist? And she's like, hopefully there are still some smart people out there. But

it's that it's that sense of like, forcing viewers to sit in the discomfort of the present moment. Well, I wouldn't phrase it like that. That would be maybe too violent to say I want the people to feel, to not feel good or to feel problematic. But I think that one of the things that cinema can offer, I hope I'm not, I don't know, but I hope that it's the case here, is a certain knowledge about the world,

a certain knowledge with a specific language, of course, with a specific form. But for me, cinema is about knowledge in a very, very broad sense, in a very wide understanding of the world. So yeah, so I think that to understand something or to know something or to understand or to describe the problems, it might have this effect on...

I always have this kind of, how should I say, unease. Whenever I have, let's say, a fixed idea, and then all of a sudden you discover another idea that contradicts it and the first impulse is to reject it or even to run away from it. I don't know, like I read this book about the lack of freedom of choice, there's a new neurological theory about these things that says actually we are not free to choose etc. etc. Everything is predetermined by the brain chemicals. I don't know and it makes you very uneasy to read that.

But I think it's important from my perspective to see through the uneasiness of everything and in the end becomes enjoyable. I think it's very enjoyable not to feel one-sided about things. I don't know how to express that better. I think there should become a pleasure, a kind of perverse pleasure a little bit, not to be sure of anything. Well, yeah, a perverse sense of pleasure is certainly what I felt watching this movie. So I mean, it's a discomfort there is there it is extremely funny and pleasurable to watch. Hesed, you want to get in here?

Yeah, there's a like an extreme feeling of like naturalness and reality like a documentary type feeling in a lot of your films. And this one's no exception that can be kind of disarming and very fun to watch and like fresh to watch. And one of my favorite moments was I saw this movie at a screening in New York with like a full crowd. And the moment where Angela farts when she's getting out of the car got a huge laugh for a while because that's not something you usually see in movies. And I'm just wondering like stuff like that, what's the process of writing those kind of scenes like? Or like how much of them is improvised usually how much is pre-planned beforehand? Oh hard to answer because I think the first of all the rules of financing in Europe and not only I think they are less and less accepting improvisational devices or films, films devised

to be improvised. So because you in the end, when whenever you try to finance a film, you need a script. That's the first thing everybody asks. And I think that's the last thing everybody asks. I want a script, the more detailed, the better. So I, although at the beginning I don't have a script, not in the form of a regular script. In the end, I put my notes together and try to shape them more or less like a screenplay. But then, of course, then it depends

what you mean by improvisation. Because usually improvisation means to let actors improvise, which I don't do that much. I might do that with some actors that I think they can improvise, but I don't do that much. I might do that with some actors that I think they can improvise, but I think there are not many. And I'm not saying this with a superiority thing or something like that, but I really think that to improvise is really difficult. It's a special talent. You can be a great actor and not able to improvise. So I don't think that most of the Romanian actors

that I work with are good at improvisation. But what I want to say is that if improvisation is also what I do, then there's a lot of improvisation because nothing is really pre-planned. So there's a lot of adapting to the moment and changing. I change the dialogues in the last minute. Sometimes, sometimes I don't. So it's always a mix of things. So it's always, I like to improvise, but it's me who improvises and less the other in the cast or in the crew. And something else I find interesting in this movie and a lot of your other work they take place in this

kind of like urban center of Bucharest and but your earlier work some of your films have take taken place in like rural areas like you know the tube with the hat or you know children from rural areas going to the city, like in The Happiest Girl in the World. And I'm just wondering, where are you from in Romania and what part of it do you consider to be, what do you call home, I guess? Would your listeners know about Romania? I have the feeling that Romania must be for somebody from United States, somehow like, I don't know, the nothingness, the void of

the earth, in a way. Well, actually, I come, my parents, both are coming from the countryside. I was raised by my grandparents, so I spent a lot of time in the countryside. Very poor, rural, middle ages time, area. Then I was brought to school, to Bucharest, but all my holidays were spent there. And so I think that in a deep way, although I'm adapted to the urban setting and I describe it in my films more than any other setting, I think that I feel most closely closer to the countryside. And I dream that one day I will leave the city and go to the countryside. But I'm not sure I would readapt there in a way.

But I know all these things that I knew how to do him, to milk a cow, for instance, which is not something that many people know. Or how do you plant seeds, how do you know all these kinds of things. But I try on the other hand, and this is something well maybe connected with age, connected with my interest in well Zen philosophy, but meaning Zen philosophy like John Cage was interested in Zen philosophy, but meaning Zen philosophy, like John Cage was interested in Zen philosophy, so somehow in a westernized way, trying to get rid a bit of my likes and dislikes and trying to adapt and try to feel at home wherever I am somehow.

And well, this is not easy, but sometimes it works and when it works, it's absolutely a nice feeling. In the same time for the films, for instance, my new film which I'm going to shoot in this summer and autumn, actually I tried to make two films. I'm finishing now two montage films and I tried to shoot two films in a back-to-back, so to speak, one financed, sort of. I mean, we still need a little bit more money, but it's financed. And the other one completely independent, like a really no-budget film.

And both of these will not be in Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania, the city I live in. They will be both in Transylvania, because one is a Dracula film, sort of Dracula film. And I said, because it's time that a local is a Dracula film, a sort of Dracula film, and I said because it's time that a local, a real local, make a real Dracula film. And the other is also in Transylvania because Transylvania is a very interesting place. It belongs to Romania but before the First World War

belonged to Hungary and the Austrian Empire, and the traces are there, so it's a very multi-ethnical region full of old or new inter-ethnic conflicts, not civil war, but sometimes they can break like that. And architecture, so it's a very, very interesting area, which I felt it's not very much explored in Romanian cinema. You mentioned an interest in Zen philosophy. And that's interesting,

because one of the things I picked up on this movie is that often the characters in this movie that are the most capitalist, and I'm thinking about the people who are developing the condos over the main characters, grandparents' graveyard, and then eventually the Austrian conglomerate. You put in their mouths a language of Eastern philosophy

and mindfulness and this kind of zen acceptance of just the way things are. What is it about like, sort of practices of mindfulness and Eastern spirituality that you find so adaptable to like the modern capitalist mindset? Well, but I, well, I'm not, I said, I think I took my measure of, of, of, of, how should I say my, my reservations when I said that I'm interested in Zen philosophy, but in the Western, in the Westernized version, like John Cage. But yeah, well, I think in the same time, what happened is that even in Romania,

I think that comes necessarily from the West, from the United States, from Western Europe, all these things about mindfulness and wellness and these kinds of things, which of course they are very important for each of us. But in the same time, I think that politically they are very questionable. And not only politically, but also aesthetically and philosophically.

Because for instance, we had a prime minister and his wife used to be, or still is. I think she's mentioned in the film somehow. Yeah, there's the book that Angela buys from like a street vendor at one point. No, no, no. Before she's going to this office, he's in a mindfulness class, this capitalist. Yeah. This is inspired by this lady who was the Prime Minister's wife, that at some point she had this idea to... I mean, you know, imagine Romania is still a very poor country with really poor areas. And then she said that all the problems would be solved if all kids would study mindfulness in class.

And this sounds, I mean, OK, I'm not against mindfulness or against this Zen idea or whatever, but then, you know, from a political perspective, come on, fuck you, you have to solve the poverty problems and other problems and not saying, oh, just do some mindfulness and everything would be okay, you see. So this is why I'm very reluctant to this and in a way I'm very much against these ideas because they come in this trivialized form and I see that I'm also teaching inclusion university and sometimes I see it at the students, all this obsession with feeling good, you know. It's always everything you need to do or to create or to receive is to feel good and not to feel threatened and not to feel like like all this bullshit about you being triggered

by a book or by a Shakespeare play or whatever. I think that's completely bullshit. I think you should be triggered by every work of art. You should be put, like Rivette said, the only reason for films or for art is to plunge people into horror. So this should be what art should do, not to make you wellness or whatever. Okay, this could be another department of life, so to speak. Okay, you can go and do a yoga class or whatever, but art shouldn't become,

I think, a kind of ersatz, a kind of this wellness industry annex, which is more and more I think. Piggybacking off that, being triggered by art and how it should provoke a reaction, one of my other one of your favorite films is I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians. And at the end of that movie, there's a military reenactment of a massacre of Jews and gypsies by Romanian soldiers and civilians. I was just wondering, was the crowd in that scene, were they actors or were they, was that a real crowd? Oh, it's interesting because in that film, whenever I have a discussion about that film,

this is the first question which arises. So what our friend has meant here is the fact that in that film, in this military enactment, which is put in the middle of the street and shot in the middle of the city, television cameras, so it's like a real live event recorded, which in a way it was actually, we created this event and then recorded it at some point where these Jews are being bullied or whatever there's people in the audience that jump in somehow and the question is that is that people extras or is this real pastors by

jumping in well I have to disappoint you and tell you that I don't know because we had a few extras, but we let, we let, we didn't do whatever, when things like this happen in cinema, filmmakers closed the streets and blocked the streets not to be on the contrary. I let everything open and it was a beautiful summer night in the middle of Bucharest, where a lot of people are taking walks. And many of them stopped there to watch what happens, the event, the show, basically. It was a show. And some of them jumped in. Now the question is, does this really

mean something more than that? Well, I don't know. I wouldn't speculate, because it was obviously a kind of a show. So, but you would hear a lot of comments around and those were really, really troubling. Yeah. Another element of this film that I wanna touch on is how filled with literary references this movie is.

Like one of the first images of the movie is the nightstand of the main character. And I believe she's reading Proust and Thomas Hardy. There are references to Goethe, Robert Louis Stevenson. I'm just wondering like, in terms of like the literature, do you view this movie in conversation with the books you were reading while you were making it? Or like, how do you conceive of the repeated allusions to literature throughout this movie?

I think there's two types of filmmakers from this point of view people who are looking for A purity the purity of the cinematic language and trying to express things In in in a way that only cinema can express them. And there is another, I don't know, maybe for this direction, somebody like Bresson would be the more Antonioni, but mostly Bresson would be the epitome of that and the model for that.

And there is another direction which is the opposite of that, which is to consider cinema as a kind of medium or as a kind of umbrella under which you can put everything. And everything you put under this umbrella becomes cinema in the end. And I think I sometimes belong to the first category, but mostly I belong to the second one. And this is also because of I think of my nature and of my limitations. I'm a reader of books and, and I'm interested in reading all kinds of things and not, not only reading, but of course, listening to things, listening to, to music,

watching things, etc. And I need this because maybe I'm not smart enough or I'm not intelligent enough, and I need things to help me in my thinking. And then at some point I said, why not using these elements exactly as elements in the discourse of the film, or in, how should I say it, in the becoming, why not transform this into the substance of the film? Also, I mentioned before the logic of collage,

and I would say it's the same thing here. It's like, it's not the reference itself which is important, or the text, or the images, or the quotations, which is important or the text or the images or the quotations Which are important, but what is important is how should I say how to Put this together So a quotation in the film if even if it's a text loses Because you take it out from the context and you put it into another context So I think it's new again in a certain way.

And all the references is also, it's the same. They are objects like all other objects. Of course they move your mind to another plane sometimes, but for me they are just part of the same continuum. And I also strongly believe that cinema should not be isolated from other arts, let's say, but to be in a continuum with them and all the other things should be the same for me. I don't like this compartmentalization of the things. I guess I don't know if it's a... I forget if a reference is ever made to it in the movie,

but the novel that most reminded me of the experience of watching this movie is James Joyce's Ulysses. Because like you just swap out Dublin for Bucharest and this movie is about really the horror and the heroism of just getting through one day of being alive and this kind of shared obscenity that we all existed. What do you make of that comparison to Ulysses? Oh, it's a very exaggerated, of course, because but but in the same time, I, I completely agree with you. Because I think I read Ulysses like six years ago, or something like that. I haven't read

it before. And, and in the moment I read it, it became a very, very, very important book for me. Actually, the new... I just got the new translation of Ulysses here. Wow. It's a new... Yeah, it's a new translation which I will just start to read. So yeah, so you can imagine that it's the influence. Even if I was not necessarily aware of that, but I think I have Ulysses now. I somehow digested it, and it's into myself in a way. So yeah, I think the comparison is good.

I mean, of course, I'm not comparing myself with Joyce, but but yeah, the comparison is is flattering and good because it's true that it has a lot of styles like Ulysses has a lot of styles. And is this journey? I was also like thinking there's like almost a little bit of Molly Bloom and Angela particularly in the scene right before the end of the movie. of Molly Bloom and Angela, particularly in the scene right before the end of the movie, where she gets fucked in a car and the guy blows her his load on her dress. That was very Molly Bloom soliloquy to me. But Radu, another big element to this movie, both in the main character, she is often sharing these very grim and dirty jokes with her various interview subjects. And it's a repeated motif in the movie, this kind of gallows humor.

Is this like, is this something that's, uh, sort of specific to a Romanian sense of humor or like, where do you get this, this very like this, this black comedy that's in this movie? Oh yeah, it's a good question. And I think there's two things to be said here that I'm aware of. One is true that belongs to, let's say, to the Romanian culture, which is something that in the same time is something that I like

and really appreciate, and in the same time is something horrible. It's a kind of humor that actually has a specific name here. And the name, the musicality of the name, I think it's interesting, is called Baschalia. So when you are making Baschalia of something, means you're laughing against something

which could be good or serious or terrible. So people who are more serious consider this trade, this kind of culture, which is part of Romanian culture, a kind of thing that makes us unable to develop. Because if you laugh at things, of course it means you don't take them seriously. And in a certain way, I guess it is something like that. But I try to see it in another way. I try to see it as a kind of relativizing something.

And if you decide to go in one direction, this kind of humor, I think, makes you think once more, let's say. So yeah, so on one hand, is this kind of collective humor which expressed itself a lot during Ceausescu's times, because that was a time when everybody was saying jokes about everything or about ourselves or about the dictatorship. And it was a kind of non-stop joking,

but of course in a desperate way. And some people after the revolution said, well, we supported so much the communist dictatorship because of this terrible humor while we should have fought and not laughed about. I feel the same way about Donald Trump in this country. I mean, it's like, it's hard to deal with the reality of it because of how funny it all is. in this country. I mean, it's like it's, it's hard to deal with the reality of it because of how funny it all is. It's like it's a way to disassociate yourself from the horror of

it is to laugh at it. But I think of the the joke that's told in the movie that the one that sticks out in my head is about God tells a peasant, you can grant any wish but any wish you make, I will give your neighbor double. And the peasant thinks about a first stock and goes who my neighbor Will get double. Okay, could you take out one of my eyes? Very Eastern European joke European attitude is true Yeah, because on the other hand actually I'm interested in vulgarity or what is called vulgar vulgar things hand actually I'm interested in vulgarity or what is called vulgar vulgar things because despite the fact that of course they are sometimes Just horrible and and unacceptable in many many context and in many ways I think inside the art system

I think vulgarity still has the power to offend people especially in right or no Romania is quite prudish and I guess America is the same In other ways, I don't know, Romania is quite prudish and I guess America is the same in other ways, I don't know. So vulgarity for me is very important because somehow some people are so offended by that that they refuse to see what's behind the vulgar language or for me so-called vulgar language or See I for me so called vulgar language, but so so I'm interested in dirty jokes. Let's say and But but from this perspective because I see they can provoke a kind of reaction and yeah I mean the your one of your films that obviously had was very vulgar and did provoke That kind of reaction was bad luck Banging or Looney Porn where Hulu put the Censored censored the first scene and you made those title cards those beautiful title cards That say censorship equals money and covered the scene with those

Yeah, I think I think that was a mistake because I made more and the little by little They took them out because for at some point I said this is a version for Christian Orthodox and Islamists and Did that experience play into the very final scene in this movie with the sort of the Bob Dylan subterranean homesick blues title cards where like they literally take the words away from the injured factory worker and just have him hold up green cards that they will then write whatever they want on later. Actually, yeah, this is something that didn't come from my imagination. It comes from experience

I had because I used to do all kinds of jobs for a living and also to film as a director all kinds of bullshit like that from soap operas to these corporate films. And in one of the cases we use these cards and these people came with this idea of let's do it like subterranean homesick blues video, which is, you know, and I think it's interesting to see how this protest thing, which were protest at the beginning, you know, Bob Dylan was doing protest song, D.A. Pennebaker was like a protest filmmaker.

In the video, Ellen Ginsburg appears, et cetera. So it's all the whole counterculture there. And then a corporation comes and takes these things and transforms it into something else. And, wow, that's part of the tragedy of the culture, if you want, where the forms, the shapes just move from one side to the other. So easy.

So easy, yes. And so not problematical, but it makes you sad. so easy, yes, and so... So, not problematical, but it makes you sad, and I think it makes you realize how easy it is to transform things from one to another. I'm always amazed that at some point, I think it was in Ceausescu's times, Ceausescu's times, Ceausescu's regime, and they realized that people were listening to rock music

in the 60s, late 60s, etc. here in Romania. So they said, okay, let's somehow stop them and make it illegal and and create our own rock bands to chant so we can control it. So you could have real rock bands playing songs like real rock protest rock bands but the lyrics were patriotic or pro-Ciausescu. There's one which is really called The Party Ceaușescu Romania. And it's the song of the summer. Well, I mean, this tension between cinema as an art form and cinema as like propaganda or advertising is alluded to in the film as well.

You talk about how in that last scene, one of the characters mentions that like one of the first things ever filmed by the Lumiere brothers, which was like factory workers leaving their place of work was staged. They were like they were the first shot wasn't good enough. So they had these factory workers leave a factory again to capture it. And then you mentioned the character mentions that the Lumiere brothers were making commercials for mustard like a year after they basically made films. That's Mélies made.

Well, you know, I'm interested in, if you want, and this is maybe a question that I am taking from a kind of distant reading or sociological reading of the things, I'm always amazed and interested about reframing the things. Because in a certain way, and that's of course with pros and cons, with good things and bad things, to try to reframe the things. For instance, to take like Hess said before about the Romanian TikTok video, and you can see that TikTok video in another way. You can see it as cinema,

or you can see it as a kind of poetry, or you can see it in a sociological way, or you can see it philosophically, or you can see it, I don't know, politically. Economically, yeah. Economically, politically, or from a gender, or whatever point of view, or from a feminist point of view. So all of a sudden, I'm not against this framing and this reading and these different readings of the things.

Of course, in the same time, sometimes you can see that they are misdirected, but that's something else. That's the risk of that. So in the same way I try to see, not only to build a film like that, but to build in the film things which are heterogeneous and trying to somehow, maybe not show because that would be too much or too difficult, but to have a hint that they can be seen in a different way. And it's exactly what we did with the 1981 film. As I said, we took these fiction films and we treat it as a kind of documentary and try to extract from it the subversive documentary parts.

Or you can see these TikTok videos with Bobica, with the filter, not only as a kind of, I mean, I see them not only the way that we spoke before, what kind of ideology they create or what kind they are, but I see in them a certain beauty, I see in them a certain beauty of these imperfections, digital imperfections of the filters, stupidity of the filter, which creates a kind of poetry, if you want, a kind of digital weird poetry. So I'm interested in mixing all these things and always reframing. It's the same thing that I said to someone, I'm sorry to repeat myself, that I try to see everything as cinema and sometimes I can do that if I go on the street I can see the people who the

way they walk that could the way cars the rhythm have like like in a cinema scene or to see two posters one next to another two commercials like like like a montage in cinema so so maybe this is the only role of cinema or of arts. That was another John Cage idea to make us not necessarily need arts at the end, but to see the arts in the life around us. Radu, before we let you go, basically the show has an idea. We talk about movies that we really love and we share that enthusiasm with our listeners. So before we let you off here, I was just wondering if you'd like to share any films that had a big influence on you or that you were thinking of when making this movie or

just any filmmaker or movie that you would like to evangelize now to our audience. Oh, yes. So many. But since you asked me what's what would be the relationship? Behind I mean what kind of films would be or what kind of things would be behind this film? I would say maybe it's not very obvious, but it's Andy Warhol's movies because of the way he always accepted accidents the way he accepted he incorporated accidents and And all this classical avant-garde of the 60s, I think. And I would mention also a text which is in vulgar modernism by Jay Hoberman called Bad Movies,

which is also, I think, a seminal and very important text also for this film. And maybe the silent films, there is an aesthetic of silent films. All of this I speak in a very general broad lines, but I think there's, I'm more and more interested in early cinema, very, very early cinema, I think there's a beauty there. I mentioned TikTok, I really think it's very important to try and see TikTok videos as a kind of artistic device. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. And if I mentioned the fun poetry before,

I think the most important discovery for me after James Joyce that we mentioned is Bern Porter. The concept of fun poetry and the books of fun poetry by Bern Porter, who's not well known in not even United States, I guess, but for me is hugely important. All right. Radu, Jude, I want to thank you so much for your time and I want to thank you for your

movie. Do not expect too much from the end of the world. I would highly encourage everyone to go see it. It is unbelievably funny and razor razor sharp about what it feels like to live and be alive today. So Radu, I want to thank you so much for your time and for your wonderful movie. Thank you, and I send you the clip with this rock band.

We'll edit it into the episode. Yes, please do. Chanting, Long Live Romania. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you! We swear that for our country and our lives we will give it to you. We swear that we will never forget our country, our country, our country. Long live freedom! Long live Romania! Long live happiness and peaceful people!

Long live Romania! Long live the Tricolor! Long live the workers, the people of the people Live in the community, live in the people The workers, the peasants, the farmers Live the dignity without any damage If you give up the fight, you have nothing to wait for Nothing can be done in the right position