02/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: Bogdan Mureşanu’s debut feature delves deep into the stuffy atmosphere of Romania in December 1989

For a reviewer who was only nine when the 1989 Revolution changed Romania forever, watching Bogdan Mureşanu’s The New Year That Never Came [+see also:
trailer
interview: Bogdan Mureşanu
film profile], now screening in the Venice Orizzonti competition, is a strange experience: it feels both very close and very distant, bringing to mind unpleasant memories of the days when people weren’t allowed to live their lives to the fullest, and yet keeping one at a distance, like watching an art installation about a prison one escaped decades ago.

The New Year That Never Came started life with the phenomenal success of Mureşanu’s short The Christmas Gift (2018), winner of the top award at Clermont-Ferrand and arguably the best-loved Romanian short ever made. A father (Adrian Văncică) finds out that his young son has posted a letter to Santa, in which he expresses his wish for “uncle Nick to die” as a Christmas gift for his father, “uncle Nick” being a nickname the entire country gave to the all-powerful dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. Here, the director adds another five stories to this one, all set over 24 hours on the day of 20 December 1989, when Romania stews as rumours swirl about fights between civilians and the authorities having caused many deaths in the city of Timişoara only days before.

It is an excellent (temporal) vantage point to study characters on the brink of the abyss. What they do might result in their destinies being crushed by the communist regime, and yet salvation might be lurking around the corner as the wave of history washes over Bucharest. Perhaps the most revealing and touching story is that of an actress, Florina (Nicoleta Hâncu), chosen to replace another thesp who has just fled the country, in a televised homage to the Ceauşescus that will be broadcast by the national TV channel on New Year’s Eve. Florina is crushed by the idea that the entire country will see her declaim an ode to the abhorred dictators, which will immediately turn her into a pariah in her small community of liberal-thinking artists. It is impossible for one not to imagine oneself in her shoes, her story playing out like a thriller where the victim is not a person, but Florina’s most cherished beliefs and self-esteem.

Mureşanu imbues his screenplay with a plethora of absurd moments, which might prompt some viewers, less prone to pondering how “big history” has a habit of crushing personal stories in totalitarian countries, to think of it as a feel-good movie, but the overarching, rarefied atmosphere is the main strength here. Aided by excellent art direction, the director manages to recreate that long-gone Romania where citizens used to retreat into their tiny flats, at once cold and stifling, where they at least had the comfort of finally being honest with themselves, and getting their dose of truth and freedom from quietly listening to Radio Free Europe.

Even if, at times, the dialogues are clunky and overly explanatory (most probably for the sake of foreign audiences with no communist DNA in their history), and even if the pay-off of one of the stories is ruined by an earlier line, The New Year That Never Came is a powerful example of how cinema can become a time machine that teleports us to a certain era, bringing us back to safety just as the issues of that period seep into our very soul. A certain moment, where Mureşanu suggests that the unrest that led to the Ceauşescus’ fleeing was caused by some firecrackers, will certainly be disputed by local historians and cinemagoers, but the film’s strengths will get the upper hand in the controversy.

The New Year That Never Came was produced by Kinotopia (Romania) and co-produced by Serbian outfit All Inclusive Films. Cercamon is handling the international sales.