<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A historical drama that can be interpreted at the juncture of theoretical discourses (heritage film, auteur film), genres (historical film, western, road movie) and representational modes (connecting to, but subverting the master narrative of Romanian historical cinema), Radu Jude’s <italic>Aferim!</italic> (2015) has attracted the attention of the international public by the unique response that it gives to the tradition of representation of the (Romanian) historical past. Its unmatched character even within New Romanian Cinema can be attributed to the fact that it does not focus on tensions of the post-communist condition or their antecedents in the recent communist past; instead, it goes back in history to a much earlier period, to the Romanian <italic>ancien régime</italic>, after the Ottoman occupation and before the abolition of Gypsy slavery, only to point at the historical roots of current social problems. Through its ingenuous (inter)medial solutions (black-and-white film, with an implied media-archaeological purport; period <italic>mise en scène</italic> but with an assumed artificiality and constructedness; a simple linear plot infused with a dense dialogue in archaic Romanian, drawn from a multitude of literary and historical sources; a sweeping panorama of 19th-century Wallachian society presented in a succession of <italic>tableau</italic> compositions), Radu Jude’s ironical-critical collage defetishizes the traditional historical iconography and debunks the mythical national imaginary, unveiling the traumatic history of an ethnic and racial mix.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="j_ausfm-2016-0016_fn_001_w2aab2b8b6b1b7b1ab1aaAa">1</xref></abstract>

A historical drama that can be interpreted at the juncture of theoretical discourses (heritage film, auteur film), genres (historical film, western, road movie) and representational modes (connecting to, but subverting the master narrative of Romanian historical cinema), Radu Jude’s Aferim! (2015) has attracted the attention of the international public by the unique response that it gives to the tradition of representation of the (Romanian) historical past. Its unmatched character even within New Romanian Cinema can be attributed to the fact that it does not focus on tensions of the post-communist condition or their antecedents in the recent communist past; instead, it goes back in history to a much earlier period, to the Romanian ancien régime, after the Ottoman occupation and before the abolition of Gypsy slavery, only to point at the historical roots of current social problems. Through its ingenuous (inter)medial solutions (black-and-white film, with an implied media-archaeological purport; period mise en scène but with an assumed artificiality and constructedness; a simple linear plot infused with a dense dialogue in archaic Romanian, drawn from a multitude of literary and historical sources; a sweeping panorama of 19th-century Wallachian society presented in a succession of tableau compositions), Radu Jude’s ironical-critical collage defetishizes the traditional historical iconography and debunks the mythical national imaginary, unveiling the traumatic history of an ethnic and racial mix.1

History, Cultural Memory and Intermediality in Radu Jude’s <italic>Aferim!</italic>

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

History, Cultural Memory and Intermediality in Radu Jude’s 

A historical drama that can be interpreted at the juncture of theoretical discourses (heritage film, auteur film), genres (historical film, western, road...

History, Cultural Memory and Intermediality in Radu Jude’s Aferim!

Published Online: Feb 18, 2017

Page range: 89 - 105

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausfm-2016-0016

Keywords
cultural memory, western, allegory, intermediality, tableau, collage

© 2016 Judit Pieldner, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

History, Cultural Memory and Intermediality in Radu Jude’s Aferim!

Published Online: Feb 18, 2017

Page range: 89 - 105

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausfm-2016-0016

Keywordscultural memory, western, allegory, intermediality, tableau, collage

© 2016 Judit Pieldner, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
cultural memory, western, allegory, intermediality, tableau, collage