The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu

Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceauşescu

Romania

2010

180 Min

Color

Romanian

Currently 4.1/5 Stars.
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CAST Nicolae Ceauşescu, Elena Ceauşescu

Cannes (Out of Competition), Transilvania (Closing Film), Melbourne (States of Dissent), Toronto (Visions), London (Cinema Europa), New York (Special Events), Stockholm (Spotlight), Vancouver, Rotterdam (Spectrum), BAFICI (Foco Andrei Ujică), San Francisco (Documentaries)

Synopsis

“After all, a dictator is simply an artist who is able to fully put into practice his egotism. It is a mere question of aesthetic level, whether he turns out to be Baudelaire or Bolintineanu, Louis XVI or Nicolae Ceauşescu.” Andrei Ujica. From a formal point of view, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu proves that it is possible to only use existing images to yield films focused on recent history, yet with an epic vein similar to that of the historical fiction cinema – such as, most notably, the ample period pieces dedicated by American cinema to the Vietnam War generation. This is an eminently syntactic endeavor, where montage plays a twofold part: mise-en-scene, as it builds scenes that do not exist as such in the rushes, and classical editing, connecting scenes together. We may be witnessing the birth of a new film genre. –Cannes Film Festival

Director

Andrei Ujică

Andrei Ujică (born 1951 in Timişoara, Romania) is a Romanian screenwriter and director. Ujicǎ studied literature in Timişoara, Bucharest and Heidelberg. He moved to Germany in 1981. In 1990 he began making films. Together with Harun Farocki, he created Videograms of a Revolution, a film which has become a standard work in Europe when referring to relationships between political power and the media and the end of the Cold War, and which was listed by the magazine Les Cahiers du Cinema as one of the top 10 subversive films of all time.

His next work, Out of the Present, told the story of the cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov who spent 10 months on board MIR, while back on Earth, the Soviet Union collapsed. The film has been compared to classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris and is considered one of the non-fiction cult films of the 1990s.[citation needed] His latest work, Unknown Quantity, creates a fictional conversation between Paul Virilio and Svetlana Alexievich, author… read more

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Pedja

6Oct12

Excellent... and you can find the answer on "Who, or even better - How to make a dictator?"

Lee Mu Bai

23Apr12

Once again disappointed...Just once, I would like to find a film her the Mubi actually has available for viewing...

TheBigCombo

9Mar12

Magistralmente articulada y libre de cualquier efectismo y afectación, esta mirada sobre la automirada de un tirano demuestra que la realidad supera a cualquier ficción.

Falderal

3Mar12

A "president" and his wife meet the queen of England. A huge procession. A royal carriage. "Adoring" public watches. A theatre marquee, in the background. It is showing the hit porno "Deep Throat." The wonderful absurdity shoots us back to reality. A reality inherently in conflict with itself. Life is not in the presentative reality of the image. This is cinema, at its purest.

Yin Soursoup likes this