Boogie Dragos Bucur, Anamaria Marinca, Vlad Muntean, Adrian Vancica Director: Radu Muntean
Like his previous outing, the 1989-set The Paper Will Be Blue (which is included in this release - see extras), Radu Muntean's latest film has the past at its centre but rather than retreading the political events from 20 years ago - as many so-called Romanian New Wave films have been doing for the past few years - Boogie is a much more personal tale, revolving around a man's struggle to reconcile his family-man present with his debauched life of yore.
The film begins with entrepreneur Bogdan (Dragos Bucur) taking his wife Smaranda (Anamaria Marinca, below, from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) and very young child (Vlad Muntean, the director's own son) for a holiday at a seaside resort. While there, he runs into his erstwhile drinking buddies, with whom he elects to revisit the good old days by hitting the town for probably one last time - a one-night adventure that leads him to rediscover the Boogie in him, the nickname suggesting the swinging life he used to lead as a carefree bachelor.
Driven by long takes laden with reflective conversation about growing up, staying put and opting out of chemical and carnal escapades, Boogie is a gritty look at that eternal question which dogs people outgrowing their young years, who struggle to contain their infantile urges for bedlam as new responsibilities and demands sink in. And Muntean delivers an excellent piece by presenting such a conundrum with nuances: Boogie doesn't hand out easy judgments about the behaviour of its characters, as it allows their self-conflicting reflections to play out in full - even if, in the end, they succumb to their base, shallow desires. It's a wonderfully thought-provoking feature. Extras: A bonus disc with The Paper Will Be Blue, Muntean's 2006 film about a Romanian soldier's experiences on the December night Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989.
