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.
1-2 Special released "Kontinental '25" in NY on 3/27/26. Click here for theaters and playdates.
