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This wise, hilarious, and ultimately moving satire won countless awards and ended up on many critics' best of the year lists. Expertly lampooning characters it both reproves and sweetly admires, the deadpan 12:08 East of Bucharest was inspired by Jarmusch's Down By Law and similarly focuses on three hangdog characters: Manescu, an alcoholic history teacher; Piscoci, an irritable old man who rails against drunks, firecrackers, and life; and Jderescu, a television talk-show host who conscripts the other two to appear on his programme marking the sixteenth anniversary of the anti-Ceausescu revolution. The televised inquiry quickly turns into inquisition, as a series of callers refutes Manescu's claim that he and three other teachers, two of them now dead, rallied against Ceausescu before 12:08 on the fateful day and were attacked by the Securitate (the secret police). Even as Porumboiu skewers pomposity, self-delusion, and casual corruption, he maintains an objective tenderness toward his characters. The director has a Tati-like eye for discomfort and incongruity - Piscoci fluttering in his outsize Santa robe or distractedly making paper boats on camera - and intensifies his dark wit with visual formalism. “One of the best films of 2007” (A. O. Scott, The New York Times).
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