TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS (2010) – drama film online

Directed by: Radu Muntean
Script by: Răzvan Rădulescu, Alexandru Baciu, Radu Muntean
Cast: Mimi Brănescu, Mirela Oprișor, Maria Popistașu, Victor Rebengiuc, Dragoș Bucur, Sașa Paul-Szel, Dana Dembinski, Silvia Năstase, Adrian Văncică, Carmen Lopăzan, Ioana Blaj
Producer: Dragoș Vîlcu
Cinematography by: Tudor Lucaciu
Edited by: Alexandru Radu
Sound: Electric Brother
Music: Electric Brother
Year: 2010
Category: Feature film
Genre: Drama
Duration: 99 minutes

PLOT SUMMARY

Paul Hanganu has been married to Adriana for ten years. They have an eight-year-old daughter, Mara. For six months, Paul has been having an extramarital affair with Raluca, a 27-year-old dentist. The man, who struggles to find time for Raluca, his family, and shopping, decides to take his daughter to the dentist one more time before Christmas. An unexpected change in Adriana’s schedule brings the two women face to face for the first time. The encounter forces Paul to tell his wife the truth.

AWARDS

• 2010 – Sarajevo – “Heart of Sarajevo” Award (Mirela Oprişor)
• 2010 – Gijon – “Asturias” Grand Prize
• 2010 – Gijon – Best Actor Award (Mimi Brănescu)
• 2010 – Gijon – Awards for Best Actress (Maria Popistaşu and Mirela Oprişor)
• 2010 – Mar del Plata – Award for Best Actress (Maria Popistaşu and Mirela Oprişor)
• 2011 – Sarasora Film Festival – Jury Award for Feature Film
• 2011 – Cyprus Film Days International Festival – Special Jury Award
• 2011 – Gopo Awards – Best Actress Award (Mirela Oprişor)

FESTIVALS

• 2010 – Cannes International Film Festival – Nomination in the “Un Certain Regard” category
• 2010 – Chicago International Film Festival – Nomination for the “Gold Hugo” award for best feature film
• 2010 – Mar del Plata International Film Festival – Nomination for “Best Actress” (Mirela Oprișor, Maria Popistașu)
• 2011 – Adelaide Film Festival – Nomination for Best Film
• 2011 – Cyprus Film Days International Festival – Nomination for Best Film

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“It seems that in no other film by Radu Muntean is the timing more perfect. Each scene is cut exactly where it should be, exactly where the breath ends.” – Iulia Blaga, hotnews.ro, September 2010, apud aarc.ro

“The effect from 2001-2002 is somewhat repeated, once again favoring Radu Muntean. Although it comes after two top productions, which it may not equal in altitude – Mungiu’s “4,3,2” and Corneliu Porumboiu’s “Police, Adjective” – “Tuesday, After Christmas” more clearly surpasses the Procrustean bed of “new neorealism” and can hardly be placed in the wake of any of André Bazin’s dictums, except, perhaps, his prophecy regarding an era of screenwriting.” – Valerian Sava, aarc.ro

“It’s an atypical story about a marital triangle, without the usual local hysterics… It doesn’t moralize and shows understanding for a character who no longer understands anything. The unfaithful husband is not exactly a scoundrel, the home wrecker is not an unscrupulous slut, and the betrayed wife is not trampled on. Muntean is a stylist: he cuts a little, polishes each frame, uses a lot of depth of field, and manages to generate tension out of almost nothing. And the dialogues already have the usual Rădulescu naturalness…” – Anca Grădinariu, “Adevărul literar şi artistic” (Literary and Artistic Truth), September 2010, aarc.ro

“The filmmakers present a Westernized Romania, going against the miserable trend of domestic cinema over the last decade. No sordid or crude details are presented in the film, not even during Paul’s visit to his mistress’s mother, despite the fact that at this point, through the woman belonging to an older generation, a type of outdated social mentality is revealed.” – Andrei Rus, “Film Menu,” September 2010, aarc.ro

“Kammerspiel, grafted onto the poetic structure of ‘concrete cinema. A linear, urban, emphatically realistic story, set against a backdrop of extreme topicality, economy of acting and audiovisual means, dialogue consisting of fragments of insignificant phrases – up to this point, we recognize all the hallmarks of the ‘new wave’, through which films and authors resemble each other to the point of confusion, rather than defining their identity.” – Elena Dulgheru, Lumina newspaper, October 19, 2010, aarc.ro

“If Tuesday, After Christmas is an excellent film, it is perhaps because ‘nothing happens’ in it. This nothingness makes Muntean’s film a more thrilling adventure than any battle, real or choreographed, that has ever taken place.” – Cătălin Olaru, Cultura no. 291, September 6, 2010, aarc.ro

“From the outset, the parallel existence of the other couple unfolds along the coordinates of normality, without the contentious nature of relationships based on irrevocable passions and/or unbearable sexual tensions, as in Pedro Almodóvar’s Carne trémula (1997) or on morbid sensibilities as in Damage (1992) by Louis Malle.” – Angelo Mitchievici, “România literară” no. 36/ 2010, aarc.ro

“The film does not aim to be innovative on a formal level. It remains consistent with a minimalist-realist style in which sequence shots, linear editing, sober, functional framing, ‘objective’ angles, and a lazy, almost fixed camera abound. But in this way, what stands out is the story, in all its essential and anecdotal aspects.” – Radu Enescu, agenda.liternet.ro

“It is an uncomfortable film, as films about truth often are, but I remain doubtful as to whether the issue it raises is really worth raising (at least in this way). It is a pure truth, delivered without restraint, and it is a particularly natural, precise, and excellently acted film, but all in all, what Muntean has to say here as a filmmaker made it one of the most non-empathetic cinema experiences I have ever had.” – Andrei Bangu, agenda.liternet.ro

“Of all Radu Muntean’s films, his latest, “Tuesday, After Christmas”, is the most moving.” – Cristi Luca, agenda.liternet.ro

“On the subject of love triangles, a film that works with the details of life, allowing its characters to express their feelings and construct their reactions coherently, is François Truffaut’s La peau douce. When it comes to romantic breakups and truths told openly, characters who grow on screen and breathe life through every pore, a significant film is Ingmar Bergman’s Scener ur ett äktenskap / Scenes from a Marriage.” – Lucian Maier, agenda.liternet.ro

“Radu Muntean is careful to avoid traditional melodramatic polarizations—stable marriage vs. regenerative passion or family harmony vs. unhealthy passion.” – Andrei Gorzo, “Dilema Veche”, September 2010, agenda.liternet.ro

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tuesday, After Christmas is Radu Muntean’s best film — his most mature, his most accomplished — and also the best Romanian film I saw in 2010!” – Alex. Leo Șerban, agenda.liternet.ro

“Obviously, the naturalness that is the aspiration of New Romanian Cinema in general is not the result of a script that relies on de-dramatization (in this case, a divorce movie, just as, nine years earlier, “Stuff and Dough”, written by Cristi Puiu and Răzvan Rădulescu and directed by the former, de-dramatized a gangster movie). In “Tuesday, After Christmas,” the observer camera, whose trajectory — more fluid than in “handheld” productions — is conceived by Radu Muntean together with cinematographer Tudor Lucaciu (another key collaborator of the director, along with editor Alexandru Radu and sound designer Electric Brother), persistently examines the three main characters and, from the outset, penetrates their intimacy like a voyeur.” – Mihai Fulger, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• The film was not conceived as a sequel to Boogie, although there is an obvious continuity in terms of age and theme between the male characters in the two films. Radu Muntean states that he does not work according to long-term plans and that the idea was not conceived as an intentional “sequel”.
• The starting point for the film was the director’s desire to make a film about “a married man who loves both his wife and his mistress”, without starting from a moral framework or a thesis.
• Writing the script took about a year, during which time there were numerous blockages, breaks, and restarts of the work process. The script was finalized in the basement of an Italian restaurant, at which point the three screenwriters divided up the sequences.
• The script was written in collaboration with Răzvan Rădulescu and Alexandru Baciu, and the differences in the three writers’ personal experiences with themes such as intimacy, sexuality, and adultery generated creative conflicts that ultimately led to better dramaturgical solutions.
• There was a version of the script in which the three characters had equal weight, and the story unfolded “in relay”, from each character’s perspective. In the final version, the male character remained the narrative pivot, but the two female characters remained essential.
• Radu Muntean says he likes to write female characters because he feels he doesn’t know enough about women and is interested in understanding them better, not out of guilt over the criticism he received for “Boogie”.
• The role of the wife, played by Mirela Oprișor, was perceived by the actress as a long-awaited role. The director mentions that they rehearsed a lot and that he constantly encouraged her acting intuition.
• Filming was tense for the director, who says he was “more tense than ever,” considering Tuesday, After Christmas a difficult film for both him and the actors, although his close relationship with the team helped him overcome the delicate moments.
• Radu Muntean explicitly states that he does not try to make films to please the public, but for a type of viewer who sees cinema as an individual experience, not as entertainment.

LINES:

 • “Where did I find you with those mutant fingers?” – Raluca (Maria Popistașu)
• “Write to Santa and ask him to bring me a man with more willpower.” – Raluca (Maria Popistașu)
• “Do these people really not watch TV?” – Paul (Mimi Brănescu)
• “Go home to your wife and children.” – Raluca (Maria Popistașu)
• “Timpuri Noi is that band that plays that Father song, right?” – Narcisa (Ioana Blaj)
• “Did you know that Enrique’s father also sings?” – Cristi (Dragoș Bucur)
• “We agreed to meet on Tuesday. Did something happen?” – Raluca (Maria Popistașu)
• “Paul, I love you and care about you very much. These are my plans.” – Raluca (Maria Popistașu)
• “You made a fool out of me.” – Raluca (Maria Popistașu)
• “What’s wrong, are you moody?” – Adriana (Mirela Oprișor)
• “Cosmina is asking us if we’re going to their place for New Year’s Eve.” – Adriana (Mirela Oprișor)
• “I’m very much in love. I met someone. I’m very sorry.” – Paul (Mimi Brănescu)
• “So you found someone younger after all.” – Adriana (Mirela Oprișor)
• “I don’t know what you imagined: that I would become friends with her or that I would turn a blind eye?” – Adriana (Mirela Oprișor)
• “I’m broken into pieces right now.” – Paul (Mimi Brănescu)
• “I’ll make sure you never see the child again.” – Adriana (Mirela Oprișor)

ARTICLES:

• “At Christmas, we got our share of heartbreak”, by Anca Grădinariu – aarc.ro
• “Intimacy, a taboo quietly shattered”, by Valerian Sava – aarc.ro
• “Without anesthesia”, by Iulia Blaga – aarc.ro
• “Unstyled, unessential, uninteresting”, by Andrei Rus – aarc.ro
• “Tuesday, after Christmas”, by Ana Maria Sandu – aarc.ro
• “A film in which Christmas is absent”, by Elena Dulgheru – aarc.ro
• “The top of the middle class”, by Cătălin Olaru – aarc.ro
• “Life is elsewhere”, by Angelo Mitchevici – aarc.ro
• “About adultery, with refinement”, by Radu Enescu – agenda.liternet.ro
• “Transformations” – About Tuesday, After Christmas and Radu Muntean, by Andrei Bangu – agenda.liternet.ro
• “Gestures that don’t lie”, by Cristi Luca – liternet.ro
• “Sterile”, by Lucian Maier – agenda.liternet.ro
• “Clear Mind”, by Andrei Gorzo – agenda.liternet.ro
• “The Fall”, by Iuliana Iustina Stănculescu – agenda.liternet.ro
• We recommend Tuesday, After Christmas”, by various authors – agenda.liternet.ro
• We recommend Tuesday, After Christmas”, by Alex. Leo Șerban – agenda.liternet.ro
• “The viewer of my films resembles me”, by Doinel Tronaru, an interview with Radu Muntean – agenda.liternet.ro

This premiere is part of a national archive project supported by the Romanian National Film Centre.
Special thanks goes to the Romanian Filmmakers Union and to the Romanian Film Archive.

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