Both Ends of the Spectrum: '12:08 East of Bucharest'

By David Eng

       12:08 East of Bucharest movie is a Romanian film about the communist period of Romania. The film is created after the fall of Communism and aims to critique just how influential the exact moment that Communism fell was. Many people like to imagine an exact moment where things change, this movie proves that this mindset can be flawed and unrealistic. The movie itself presents itself as a dark comedy at some points and a lighthearted comedy at others. The cinematography is well thought out and allows for different emotions to be experienced at certain points in the movie. The cinematography itself influences one's emotions heavily. The audio design coincides well with the dialogue and cinematography because of the way that they flow together. Voice overs seem very natural and a lot of the audio can be taken as a metaphor for an aspect of Romania at these times. This mesh makes a lot of the story come together very nicely. No feature seems out of place in the film despite being somewhat experimental and odd.

            The story itself is about the escape of a Communist leader in the town of Bucharest. He left the city at 12:08 and was symbolic of the fall of communism. The debate that the film focuses on is if there was a revolution or not in Bucharest. Protestors came after the Communist leader left which would not be considered a revolution. However, one person claims to have been in the square of Bucharest protesting against Communism with some of his friends. The basic plot of the movie is a television program starring the host, one of his elderly friends, and a supposed protestor. They try to find out if his statements of being at Bucharest are true and if there was or was not a revolution in Bucharest. The story uses the aspect of the antihero in the movie because before any of the debate starts, they show us our characters in their everyday lives. They are all nothing spectacular. One is a drunk who cannot afford to his rent and has to borrow money from a friend, again. There is a scene where the host is looking for quotes from old philosophers to say in his program. The host's friend is seen as being an old somewhat senile man who gets too distracted at all points. This transition from seeing them in their state of everyday lives, to seeing them on a broadcast where they are forced to be professional, gives the watcher a new perspective on the characters.

            While being a critical movie about Romanian communism, the movie is easily considered a comedy. This does not mean that it makes light of a serious topic, rather it adds comedy to the situation that they are in. Some comedies can be considered controversial for poking fun at sensitive topics. 12:08 East of Bucharest does not do this as rather than making fun of sensitive topics, it gives insight to what exactly was happening. The comedy comes from the characters and their anti-heroic traits rather than the state of affairs. Despite being funny, the movie also is riddled in metaphors and interesting camera techniques that give the movie a much deeper meaning. The movie is clearly about the ending of Communism in Romania, but what exactly does this mean for the people? The areas in the movie that are seen are mostly withered away or broken down. The houses are somewhat ramshackle and the movie has no problem making this point. This goes to show that just because Communism has ended, things will not immediately get better for the people. Much more effort must be made in order to make real progress. There are a plethora of metaphors like these throughout the movie and is one of the reasons why the movie is so great.

            12:08 East of Bucharest is an easy recommendation because of its comedic story and interesting cinematography. This film is a good way to start getting into foreign films because despite all the metaphors throughout, the characters are well developed and interesting. So if you are not into the whole looking for metaphors and hidden meaning behind things, the dry comedy of the film makes it enjoyable for a wide variety of audiences. I would give the film a 9/10 because it is a fantastic film, but the action of the film may be a bit slow and boring for some audiences.