THE DEAD NATION

In Radu Jude’s first foray into the documentary film genre the Romanian director dares to conduct an experiment: “Fragments of Parallel Lives”, as the film is subtitled, documents the period from 1937 to 1946 in Romania. The film shows striking, detailed and often beautiful portraits of simple members of the rural population, captured by “Fotostudio Splendid” in the country’s southeast region. Parallel to these projections one hears diary entries from the Jewish Bucharest resident and doctor Emil Dorian, read aloud by Radu Jude himself. In between them, excerpts from radio broadcasts and nationalistic songs from the era allow one to begin to fathom the anti-Semitism that Dorian experiences first hand and through the reports of eyewitnesses. The linking of these elements allows the true horror to become palpable, as the viewer is repeatedly given time for the material, both heard and seen, to resonate. As for instance in the midst of the euphoria of war where suddenly family portraits are populated by children giving the “Roman salute”. Or when the screen remains black during the most unimaginably dark passages.