“Where’s the director? … I have one word for you: emotion.”
Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (2023) is the third film of Romanian director Radu Jude’s that I have seen and I love his approach and style. Taking inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard and others, Jadu makes essay-films that bring a lot of texts to the table and look for the contradictions, overlaps and tensions between them. Here, this near three-hour film cuts between three media modes: the present day in black-and-white cinematography observing overworked P.A. Angela (Ilinca Manolache, who is fantastic) as she drives endlessly between assignments, pumping loud music to stop herself falling asleep; the TikTok/Instagram uploads that Angela makes as a character named “Boba,” using a filter to transform herself into a parody of toxic bro incels; and the repurposing of an older Romanian film, Angela Moves On, from the 1980s, made during stricter government censorship about a woman taxi driver also named Angela (played by Dorina Lazar). The older film is shot in colour and often the footage is slowed down to inspect the background, of people and locations that have changed.
There are tensions between the two representations of Romanian society then and now, and how the two drivers are treated by the men around them. Without knowing more about Romanian culture than what the movie comments on, there are strong themes that would speak to everyone, specifically the work culture of today, between Angela’s overtime and struggle to get through another day on the road, to the corporate video about workplace safety that she is interviewing potential actors for. Satirical, funny, observational, and dynamic in its intermingling of styles, texts and quotes (even throwing in hand-written quotes into the closing credits), this was masterful and compelling. Being slowly crushed by the wheels of industry but finding the time to get 40K viewers on your latest fucked-up TikTok.
The decision to have Angela wear a sparkly dress on her rounds is such a masterstroke in the black and white images. When she pulls over to sleep during the day and the sun hits the dress for a reflective glare like a disco-ball, further compounding the inability to find relief.
Available to stream on Mubi. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 