The exploitation of the poor guy by corporations is a universal affliction. So is the desire to make art about it. No filmmaker today tackles the subject with as much gusto as Romanian auteur Radu Jude. While other directors make grand gestures about societal inequities, dating themselves with their stories and form, Jude is happy to launch a Molotov cocktail at everything that came before him. He is one of the freest filmmakers working right now—unencumbered by rules, politesse, or good taste. Contemporary malaise has rarely been captured on screen with such thrilling vividness as in “Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World”— Romania’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar.
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Jude uses a single day in the life of PA Angela (Ilinca Manolache) to string together a rich tapestry of current issues. Even working 16 hours daily is not enough as Angela’s production company employers pay her peanuts. She does Uber on the side but complains it doesn’t offer benefits because it is treated like a tech company rather than an employer. Throughout the day, we see her filming auditions with disabled workers for a chance to appear in a safety video produced by their ex-employer. Each one is the victim of an accident caused by the adverse working conditions—though they’ll have to say otherwise in the video. Eventually, wheelchair-bound Ovidiu (Ovidiu Pîrșan) is selected.
The auditions alternate with several detours. Angela has to deal with moving her grandparent’s graves because the cemetery where they are buried is in the way of an upcoming hotel. One of her errands improbably leads her to the set of notorious German director Uwe Boll. Boll gamely appears as himself, directing a typically Z-grade creature flick, and even talks about his infamous boxing match in 2006, where he beat up film critics who trashed his films. Angela’s pretentious bosses also make her book a restaurant reservation, drive around a client (“Tár” star Nina Hoss), and attend a pre-production meeting where she does all the work. When she spits in their food before serving, it feels like a small victory.
Elsewhere, Angela meets an older man (Daniel Popa) for a brief quickie in her car. She has zero interest or time for a relationship, and sex is only a respite from her work schedule — a nod to the transactional aloofness of intimacy these days. Lust is rarely depicted sensibly in cinema, if at all —perhaps deemed too base for elevated pictures. It is yet as commonplace a physical need as eating, and Jude portrays it as such.
Jude’s eye-ball-grabbing gambit is the inclusion of Bobita, an alter-ego that Angela has cultivated for Tiktok. In a devastating mockery of Andrew Tate, Angela puts a Tate filter on her face and spouts the most vile, offensive, misogynistic, and xenophobic bullshit she can muster. The joke, obviously, is that the real thing sounds infinitely more ludicrous than her parody. Jude pushes the envelope with the satire in these Tiktoks —at one point, Bobita pledges allegiance to Putin and denounces Zelensky. “Do Not Expect Too Much…” is the free speech exemplar among films this year. It is fitting when Angela cracks open a volume of Salman Rushdie’s perennially controversial “The Satanic Verses” and reads from it.
Jude structures the film to loosely mirror another Romanian film, “Angela Moves On.” The two films are in dialog, and we see extensive footage from the 1981 film within the body of “Do Not Expect Too Much…”. The earlier film also follows a woman driving about town—taxi driver Angela (Dorina Lazar). Jude often slows down the footage from “Angela Moves On” to show us things that escaped Nicolae Ceaușescu’s censors back in the day, like people waiting in line for food stamps. In an act of metaphysical doubling, Lazar also appears in “Do Not Expect Too Much…” as Ovidiu’s mother, reprising her role from 42 years ago. “Angela Moves On” thus functions both as a mirror and a flashback.
Adding to the heady brew are references as varied as Goethe, Charlie Hebdo, and Bob Dylan, and discussions about unionization, pensions, Anthony Bourdain‘s death, King Charles‘ ascension, and Elon Musk’s self-driving cars. There is a sense that Angela and the people she interacts with have interesting things to say to each other. Lack of greed might make people poor, but not uncurious or uncivilized.
Jude’s several concerns all come together in a bravura 40-minute unbroken take (save for a hidden jump cut) that concludes the film. In real-time, we witness the filming of Ovidiu’s safety video for his ex-employer. Ovidiu is suing his company for damages but agrees to do the video because he needs the money. During the first take, he relates the unvarnished account of how he ended up disabled due to the company’s negligence. By the last take, he has been cajoled, bullied, and gaslit to let the corporation almost completely off the hook— in a farcical display of corporate white-washing. Even as we laugh at the expert comedy, we are forced to reflect upon the reality of people like Ovidiu, who are chewed up and spit out by a rigged system on a daily basis.
Jude’s previous film “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” attempted to meld together a video essay aesthetic and story-telling with disjoint results. “Do Not Expect Too Much…” represents a refinement of his method—the themes originate organically and are seamlessly embedded in the narrative. Manolache anchors the film in a star-making performance of effortless charisma. Only subtitles and an extended running time stand in the way of Angela becoming an iconic character. The film is expertly assembled. Ovidiu’s video shoot is in high-res digital, while Angela’s adventures are captured in grainy, high-contrast monochrome, lending a “Sin City” like glamour to the proceedings. The “Angela Moves On” footage is presented in subdued color. An eclectic soundtrack is omnipresent—blaring from Angela’s radio to prevent her from sleeping. An inspiration for the film was a young, overworked PA who fell asleep at the wheel and fatally crashed. Angela could be that person, but so could any of us. As we see her hustle and cope, there is an exciting feeling that we are seeing life as we experience it today. For 2 hours and 40 mins, we get to experience the exhilaration of Jude’s freedom as a filmmaker. [A]