Reel Life: Holding an irreverent mirror

The innate irreverence of the film screams at us from the title itself but still doesn’t prepare one for the delirious, preposterous yet entirely coherent and convincing ride that is Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn. Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude’s latest, made during the pandemic and also set in it, took Berlinale 2021 by storm and also emerged the unanticipated winner of the Golden Bear.

Be it the strange story it tells, the taboo subject it dwells on or the bizarre turn of events that transpire in it, the idiosyncratic people that it brings under its camera’s gaze, the unconventional stylistic devices and form that it uses or the caustic humour it deploys, Bad Luck Banging… is far from the conventional arthouse cinema that populates and gets celebrated in the international film festival circuit. It provokes and challenges at every level—artistic, cinematic, political, polemical, formal. It asks a lot of its viewers even as it gives them amply back in return to ponder on.

The video of a woman and her husband having sex is leaked online and goes instantly viral. The identity of the woman gets revealed and she turns out to be a teacher in a Bucharest school. While parents demand her dismissal, she finds both her career and reputation at stake. But she is not willing to take it lying down.

Radu Jude crafts an inventive three-part narrative. The first has the teacher walk along the entire length and breadth of the post lockdown city, setting her in a space that is seemingly getting back to the normal, contextualising her in a world and yet framing her individuality.

The second part is like a primer. You could call it a visual dictionary, an encyclopaedia of assorted images or a mosaic of footage that is an alphabetic explanation, from A to Z, of the significant events, ideas, people and places of our times—from the Church to the Parliament, Hitler to Stalin and Ceausescu, folklore to global warming and selfies—that have shaped contemporary Romania.

It is here that the political commentary gets sharp and trenchant. Patriotism is defined, in one instance, with a quote: “O country of freedom where I can beat people when I so wish.” Another time we are told another truth: “Political indifference is closely related to moral decay in that people who are politically innocent are morally suspect”. And irony dies an instant death when the film talks about an officer who fought in the Middle East being concerned that “robotic warfare will remove human empathy from armed conflict”. Even as you chuckle it also somehow all of it rings true even for India.

The third part is a sitcom like inquisition. It is a discussion held at the school between the teacher and the parents in which judgement is passed on her. The war of words that ensues shows the society at its most primitive, opinionated, chauvinistic, righteous and hypocritical, while the parents-teacher meeting gradually deteriorates into a kangaroo court.

The hullabaloo over the seemingly superficial holds a mirror unto people and posits many questions. Can we arbitrarily sit on judgment on a teacher? Can we unilaterally call her a porn actor when it’s a consensual clip that has been uploaded without seeking her consent in the first place? Isn’t it a case of her breach of privacy? What is wrong in a middle-aged woman having desires? Moreover, can we, for a change, accept our teachers as human beings like us and not some exemplary, spotless creatures that they are always supposed to be?

The questions don’t end here—how to define obscenity? What is obscene to one, may not be to another. Doesn’t obscenity lie in the eye of the beholder? Isn’t political opportunism, overt consumerism, ideological poverty and intolerance and bigotry as obscene if not more than a sex clip?

The film begins with a quote from The Mahabharata about the world sinking due to decrepitude and death. In the contemporary Indian context, wherein everyone is easily offended at the drop of the hat, at almost anything and everything, Bad Luck Banging… offers an example of how the filmmakers in adult societies are able to push the envelope of art, morality and taste. All at the same time.

And how a mature audience accepts it and irrespective of liking or disliking it, freely debates on it, celebrates or critiques it. It doesn’t ask for cuts, bans and total erasures. Only in situations such as these can good cinema and culture truly flourish. Being a cinephile, after all, is not just about watching the likeable but also grappling with that which is disagreeable and pushes us out of our comfort zone.