12:08 East of Bucharest
12:08 East of Bucharest was one of the New York Times‘ film critic A.O. Scott’s top ten films of 2007. Scott is a critic I trust, but I didn’t connect with this satiric film that wonders whether a revolution took place or not in a small Romanian town. I found it more dead than deadpan. My husband fell asleep, and I had to struggle not to. I don’t find alcoholism funny, so many of the film’s jokes at the expense of a main character fell flat with me.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I totally agree with you. I found 12:08 to be virtually unwatchable and actually fell asleep in the middle of it, IN A MOVIE THEATER. I have never done that in my entire life. (In my defense, I will note that the theater was terribly overheated and I was surrounded by Romanians who actually got all of the jokes in real time instead of via the subtitles, so I was at a disadvantage from the get go.)
February 13th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Oh, I’m so glad someone else thought so, too. I felt like a cultural philistine that I didn’t like it.