Arriving in theaters just weeks after the Cannes Film Festival handed two of its top prizes to Romanian films, and in the wake of a major critics'
poll that declared Romania's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu the best movie of 2006, Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest — yet another Cannes prize-winner — is now clearly part of an exciting New Wave. Set on the sixteenth anniversary of the 1989 uprising that drove Nicolae Ceausescu from power, this unprepossessing but often hilarious little picture, set in a small hamlet some distance from the titular capital, finds a pompous talk-show host (Teodor Corban) eager to commemorate the occasion by honoring its local heroes, who allegedly took to the town square before Ceaucescu's disgrace was made public (at precisely 12:08 p.m.). His two guests, however, are drunken, cantankerous wrecks with decidedly fuzzy memories, and when the phone lines are opened to viewers, everyone from gossipy housewives to former secret policemen call in to dispute their claims.
Porumboiu's formal strategy, at once daring and frustrating, will either make or break the movie for most people. The first half of 12:08 East of Bucharest follows the host and his two guests individually as they putter about their respective mornings, showcasing three distinct and fully lived-in variations on gruff, flailing masculinity. Then, like a worn-out mule, the film arrives at what it's decided is its destination — a rinky-dink TV station — and refuses to budge. Everything that follows is shot, quite deliberately, with the technical ineptitude of a bad cable-access show, complete with a single camera that only moves when its operator accidentally jostles it. What had originally seemed subtle and expansive abruptly metamorphoses into a broad sketch-comedy symposium on revisionist history; while the performances remain sharp and funny, the visual monotony eventually becomes oppressive. Still, might as well jump on the Romanian bandwagon now, lest you be forced to admit in years to come that, unlike the hipsters, you didn't get the message until sometime after 12:09. — Mike D'Angelo