Radu Jude has made a messy, at times incomprehensible film in Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, yet it is also a film that you cannot stop watching due to how endlessly entertaining it is, leaving you to think about you and your own countries moral compass.
Emi (Katia Pascariu), a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure.
It is probably better to throw in a warning right away about Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn; there is a graphic sex sequence right from the first minute. So for those of you who are cautious of who or where you watch your films in this digital world, don’t be caught watching this on the bus or train thinking you are just going to watch a normal movie… A possible embarrassment warning is given; let’s get on with the review.
Broken down into three chapters, the first, as you now know, involves remnants of the actual private sex tape that got leaked online. As Emi meanders from here to there before making it to her tribunal/parent-teacher conference, we get an almost Richard Linklater to feel to Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. Characters chat about anything and everything before moving off to somewhere else where the next conversation will begin. It is all very cinema verité and at times quite refreshing with it not having that controlled structure that you would expect from such a film.
While we are in that first chapter, we see the sprinkling of toxic masculinity that Radu Jude is showing us that is rife not just in Romania but also in the world. It is important to remember that this isn’t a film that could be just set in Romania, it could be anywhere, and the response from the characters would still be the same. We see so much anger around, whether that is at the grocery store or on the street, anger is everywhere, and it feels as if anyone and everyone is out to cause an argument.
The second chapter is full of montages of the history of humankind and all of the atrocities and wrongs we have done to each other over the centuries. This chapter also makes a very strong point about the cultural history of Romania, yet squint your eyes just enough, and it still resonates closer to home. Like many other countries, Romania is full of conservatives who have a hold of their country, keeping it in line with thoughts and ideas that have long since been passed by. This is an intriguing section as it is biting in the point it is making. For a film that has the opening third that it does, this section just throws all expectations out the window. Best of all, it is so refreshing to see a filmmaker just go for it.
Yet it is the third act that really grabs you as Emi takes on the parents of her class in a debate about what she did and the repercussions of that. Are children who have seen the video affected by what they have seen? Are parents too controlling in having their children live the life they want instead of the life they need to live? Questions are asked, and Jude does his best to anger those conservative folk by having them be so over the top in their idiocy. Those who are rightfully on Emi’s side are presented as sanely as possible, and that is the point, really.
People who believe in people having a form of freedom and, in Emi’s case, not being to blame for something that she did not put out into a public forum are shown to be as normal as possible. Those who are off and right-leaning are dressed so weirdly, be it the older man in a sailor’s costume trying to flirt with someone 50 years younger than him, the man still in his pilot uniform, or the man in his army uniform, it is nonsense and purposely so. However, you can’t stop watching, you want the discussion to keep going, yet Jude wraps us up in an interesting manner.
In the end, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a film that can honestly be said is nothing like you will have seen before, especially in this specific structure. It is unique, and happily, it is more than watchable, which is such a welcome surprise after the first act. A satire that does just the right amount right.
★★★
BAD LUCK BANGING or LOONY PORN is available now on PVOD and in Virtual Cinemas, and will also be released on VOD February 21st
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