Aferim! (2015)

Radu Jude had been working in Romanian cinema for around a decade before Aferim! brought him significant international attention, winning him the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival. Shot in crisp black and white by cinematographer Marius Panduru, the film draws on historical research into early 19th century Wallachia, a period when Roma slavery was a legal and embedded institution in the Romanian principalities. Jude and co-writer Florin Lăzărescu framed the story as a loose homage to the Romanian road movie tradition and the spaghetti western, though the setting is the Wallachian countryside rather than any frontier. The production was a modest Romanian co-venture with Bulgarian and Czech partners, and its theatrical returns were minimal, though its festival profile gave it considerably wider reach than the box office figures suggest.

A-Z World Movie Tour Romania I can’t give Aferim! more than 1 star because, honestly, it was deeply uncomfortable to watch, and not in the way it probably intended. Yes, it’s set in 19th century Wallachia, a time when Roma slavery was legal, and yes, it’s trying to be a stark period piece showing the brutality of that world. But the film spends nearly every minute drenched in relentless racist slurs, dehumanising jokes, and sexist taunts, all aimed at the Roma character, Carfin. It doesn’t feel like critique, it feels like complicity. The camera lingers, the jokes pile up, and the lead constable, our so-called protagonist, spouts bigotry like it’s punchline after punchline. No empathy. No humanity. Not even trying to hide it. I have Roma ancestry, and I know full well the long history of oppression we’ve faced, then and now. So I didn’t need a “realistic” film to tell me that people were cruel. What I did hope for was some depth, some perspective, some moral clarity. Instead, it’s presented with a cold, almost clinical detachment that makes the cruelty feel casual, routine, even normal. It’s not challenging the racism, it’s performing it, over and over, like it’s brave just for showing it existed. Maybe the filmmakers thought they were holding up a mirror. But mirrors can also be used to stare without seeing. This isn’t bold cinema, it’s exhausting, one-note, and ultimately exploitative. It offers no insight, no redemption, no voice to the oppressed. Just 108 minutes of degradation dressed up as art. I walked away feeling worse, not wiser.

Rating: ★  | Year: 2015  | Watched: 2025-08-26

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