Silver Bear winner Radu Jude (“Aferim!”) returns to the Berlin Film Festival this year with the competition feature “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” the story of a schoolteacher whose life is turned upside-down after a sex video shot with her husband is leaked on the internet. The acclaimed writer-director spoke to Variety about how he spent the pandemic when he wasn’t making movies, and why he thinks cinema is still vital in today’s world.
How did you handle the risks of filming during a pandemic?
It is a moral question, and also a practical one. The moral question being, what do you do in this situation? Do you risk the health of the people, their lives, their future, for your film or not? I decided to risk as little as possible. Maybe I’m not very adventurous; or if I am, maybe I am not adventurous at the expense of somebody else’s health.
Were there any advantages?
We kept everybody in masks, which of course became not only a practical thing, but it became a kind of metaphor for these people, because they appear in all shapes, they have messages on them. You can treat them as a piece of film as well.
You wanted to give your film the subtitle “An essay about obscenity.” Why?
This is the theme, or one of them. What is obscene? What is immoral? We are used to acts which are much more obscene, in a way, than these small [sexual] acts. If society is so full of obscenity, then let’s face it: that video is not obscene anymore. This was my idea, to show that the one so-called obscenity in the porn video is nothing compared with what is around us. But we don’t pay attention to it. And cinema can help us to see things better.
Why do you return to Romanian history so often in your films?
I think it was Brecht who said that we learn from history as much as a guinea pig learns biology when he [is part of] an experiment. When people mention history, usually it means stories about the past, dates of famous battles. It is true that I’m interested in history, but more in the history of trying to make these connections between past and present, trying to see in the past a mirror for something in the present, and vise versa.
Apart from making your film, how have you spent your time in lockdown?
I read all of “[In Search of] Lost Time,” the seven volumes of Proust. I’m so grateful I did, because it’s really not a work of art — it’s like a natural phenomenon. It’s like seeing Niagara Falls.
Why do you make movies?
I always ask myself this question, which doesn’t have an answer in the end: Why do we make cinema? Does it matter? For me, it matters. For me, cinema is a way of thinking — that’s the most important thing. Thinking, and observing the world with a camera, and these are as important as ever.