Mungiu’s first feature is a brilliant, flawed piece of filmmaking. Perhaps it’s easy to say in retrospect that there’s something callow about the film, given how it becomes clear in the director’s later career his capacity for conveying both emotion and tension. Nevertheless there’s a formal dexterity to Occident which wins the viewer over. The leap from Occident to 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is fascinating. 4 Months possesses an intensity and tension which Occident barely hints at. Occident feels in many ways as though it belongs to a line of Eastern European filmmaking which celebrated the quirks of their respective societies, (think also of Kustirica’s early films and others such as Nemescu, Porumboiu or Menzel, even early Kieslowski.) The tone of much of this filmmaking is tongue-in-cheek, affectionate and ironic; also, clearly limited by what the censor permitted. 4 Months represented a step into a darker, more threatening world, with a level of psychological violence which grabbed the viewer by the throat. Having said which, Occident is a highly engaging piece of filmmaking in its own right. There’s a formal investigation of narrative, with three interwoven stories, reminiscent of its near contemporary Amores Perros. The fractured narrative is punctuated by freeze frames and the occasional crane shot, stylistic flourishes which the director dispensed with in his later films. The opening sequence runs the risk of becoming schmaltzy (notably through the use of music) but as the film builds layer upon layer, it lures the viewer in. In the end, Occident offers a diverse portrait of early C21st Bucharest, a city where Macdonalds and a ‘World Trade Centre’ commercial zone cohabit with rundown Ceausescu era apartment blocks. One where ordinary Romanians dream of escape to the West, whilst maintaining an affectionate, pre-atomised society which, his next film will go on to suggest, will soon be blown apart.
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