MIFF NOTES: Graduation (2016, Dir. Cristian Mungiu)

I famously (in my own head) fell asleep in Christian Mungiu's previous film. I haven't seen his big ticket effort, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Post-Graduation, I'm inclined to say I'm not riding his section of the Romanian New Wave.

Here he does the typical slow burn, tricks off the nepotism that appears to be the predominant preoccupation in his country at the moment, and delivers a low-key morality play (with a some open-ended mystery thrown in for good measure).

Performances are all necessarily downbeat, with the father and daughter relationship well served by Adrian Titieni and Maria-Victoria Dragus. The treatment of the sexual assault that colours the film is well handled but frustratingly blinkered to keep in line with the father's refusal to consider what has actually gone down. It is a compromised springboard into a compromising situation but with everything that follows calibrated so as to try to pinpoint where corruption begins, it turns out a little too kitchen sink. The point gets drowned in the dishwater.

Well made, watchable but doesn't get the pulse or the mind racing.

★★★

Trailer:

Graduation screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.