Synopsis

A video goes viral. It shows a man and a woman having sex while wearing masks. The woman is, nevertheless, identified. Too bad she is a teacher and supposed to be a role model. And this, moreover, in a (post-socialist but ultimately any) society that is about to get lost in a social network discourse of would-be healing squeaky-clean attitudes, pseudo-political knowing-it-all, sanctimonious chauvinism and grotesque conspiracy theories. Everyone has an opinion. The debate turns into a tribunal – about consensual sex, pornography and more.

Always up for innovative cinematic experiments, Radu Jude has crafted from this constellation an intelligent, satirical triptych: with its nonchalantly precise camerawork and manic humour found in the stress of everyday life on Bucharest’s streets, the first part shows us what contemporary cinema at the documentary-fiction interface can look like. The second part is an offbeat series of laconic, static images intended as an encyclopaedia of the symbols of our time. The film’s grand – albeit open-ended – finale is a discussion held at the school in which judgement is passed on our heroine’s right to exist.