Kontinental ’25
An old man trudges through Transylvania's Dino Park lugging a big plastic bag. We'll watch him try to get work or just plain beg, mostly with no luck. But Ion Glănetașu (Gabriel Spahiu, Jude's "Dracula") still has pride and when bailiff Orsolya Ionescu (Eszter Tompa, "The Duke of Burgundy") comes knocking with an eviction notice, he has no intention of moving out of his former boiler room for the new boutique hotel "Kontinental '25."
Laura's Review: B
Romanian writer/director Radu Jude ("Aferim!," "Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World") made two films in Transylvania in 2025, his absolutely bonkers take on "Dracula" following this more typical mix of historical and societal issues, Jude's impish sense of humor underlying all, beginning with Glănetașu's assurances that he will pay back the people he begs from. With a title that tips its hat to the film which inspired it, "Europa '51," Jude judges the all too human ability to rationalize our response to the misfortune of others.
Although Mr. Glănetașu states that he will not move into the shelter she's identified for him, Orsolya tells him she and the officers with her will leave him for twenty minutes, allowing him to pack his belongings in peace. As the officials drink coffee in a Cluj-Napoca square, Orsolya tells them about everything she's tried to do for him, including obtaining movers and getting him the one month extension which just expired. When they return to his hovel, they find him dead, having wrapped a wire around his neck, secured it to a radiator and used his own weight to strangle himself, a determined act which Orsolya will tell everyone she talks to about in detail. Although she is also repelled by the smell of his urine, Orsolya goes into a deep funk of guilt, telling her husband, Vlad (Adrian Sitaru), that she is in no mood to accompany him and their two children on their Greek vacation. Both he and her boss before him have already adamantly proclaimed her completely innocent of Glănetașu's death. Over the course of the next few days, Orsolya will seek absolution three times.
After seeing her family off from their nice home in a part of town she frequently notes is a good location, Orsolya meets her friend Dorina (Oana Mardare, "Dracula"), again sitting in an outdoor square. After recounting her terrible ordeal, Dorina will tell her about a homeless man who's taken up residence in an alley behind her home and the terrible stench that greats her when she opens a window. Dorina crosses the street to avoid him, yet feels badly thinking about him dealing with the cold. Orsolya notes that she refuses to work on evictions when the weather turns. As a Hungarian, Orsolya has also been chastised by local and social media blaming her for a Romanian's death. Dorina replies she often feels guilty talking to Orsolya as an ethnic Romanian, considering that they stole Transylvania centuries earlier. She also tells her about a charity for Romani which Orsolya immediately adds to the long list on her Vodaphone's automatic monthly donation program.
Later, Orsolya, who we'll learn used to be a law professor, runs into one of her former students, Fred (Adonis Tanta, "Dracula"), now a bicycle delivery guy with a lit up sign on his back proclaiming himself Romanian to divert driver aggression against the immigrants who mostly fill these jobs. When he calls later to see if she'd like to go out, she'll tell him she's not in the mood, but agrees to meet him for a beer, leading to an evening of drunken debauchery, Fred spouting Zen anecdotes designed to make her feel better.
Her sexual dalliance with Fred probably just having added to her guilt, Orsolya next visits her priest (Serban Pavlu, "Scarred Hearts") who offers her the least constructive wisdom yet leaves her feeling finally absolved. Calling Vlad to tell him she'll be joining them in Greece, Jude ends with an ironic montage of apartment building construction. "Kontinental '25" may be best summed up by a Brecht quote Jude includes here about the innocents being executed in Stalin's gulags actually being guilty because they did nothing against his tyranny. His screenplay basing atonement on charity, Buddhism and the Bible won the Silver Bear at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival.
Robin's Review: B
A homeless man wanders the streets and parks of a Transylvanian town. Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a government bailiff, is ordered to evict the man from an abandoned building. They leave him to pack his meager belongings but, instead, he kills himself in "Kontinental '25."
Writer-director Radu Jude takes us on a Romanian journey that begins with time spent following the homeless man through his day looking for food and begging for money. It switches gears dramatically when Orsolya leads a pair of gendarmes to the basement of an abandoned building – to be replaced with a luxury boutique hotel (instead of housing for the homeless being displaced).
The man has nowhere to go and does not want to go to a shelter. Orsolya insists and gives the man space to collect his belongings. Instead, he commits suicide in a graphic and horrifying way. The bailiff, of course, blames herself but is told by her superior that she is "legally not guilty."
This is the meat of the story as Orsolya seeks affirmation from friends and colleagues that she did nothing wrong. They, though, are missing her point. She is honestly concerned for the suicide victim and the homeless, in general, but those around her fail to see the real problems with society – like her boss, her friend and her parish priest who quotes gospel as answers.
Radu Jude's cynicism about the world is obvious in this treatise on how those in need, in any society, are either underserved by those who should serve them or ignored completely, in favor of the almighty buck. Sounds like good old American style capitalism.
Much ado about nothing, but the filmmaker gives us a Romanian architecture tour scattered throughout the narrative and it is oddly compelling. Also in highlight is the Romanian-Hungarian rivalry, including jokes that will have much more meaning for the locals.
1-2 Special released "Kontinental '25" in NY on 3/27/26. Click here for theaters and playdates. It is also available on VOD via Apple TV and Fandango at Home.
