Le Journal d'une femme de chambre

Radu Jude findet seine Célestine in einer rumänischen Hausangestellten – das ist so naheliegend wie genial. Gianina hat in Bordeaux bei der Bourgeoisie angeheuert; ihre kleine Tochter ist bei der Großmutter im Dorf geblieben. Die heutige Magd ist eine 24-Stunden-Kraft, die putzt, kocht und den Sohnemann von der Schule abholt. Abends spielt Gianina auf der Bühne eines Laientheaters in Octave Mirbeaus „Tagebuch einer Kammerzofe“ und befreit den ansonsten unterdrückten Dienstboten-Fetisch derart, dass auch Buñuel seine Freude gehabt hätte. Eine furiose Adaption des Fin-de-Siècle-Stoffes durch den großen rumänischen Gesellschaftssatiriker. (Dunja Bialas)

In Anwesenheit von Radu Jude.

This may not be the first screen adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s titular novel, but in the hands of Romania’s most uncompromising filmmaker, its critical spirit is renewed by being transposed to the present. The diary in question is now audiovisual and is the medium which Gianina chooses to keep in touch with her young daughter, who lives with her grandmother in a Romanian village. Gianina’s everyday life as a domestic servant in the home of a progressive French middle-class family provides the starting point for an inquiry into class self-deception while also examining the working conditions that restrict the freedom of domestic workers. Everything surrounding her desire to spend Christmas with her family becomes a remarkable illustration of servitude. Jude is critical, but fortunately he is far too lucid to be cynical. Without ever passing judgement on his characters, he is able to unsettle the viewer because he lays bare the limits of the well-meaning in recognisable situations that are at once amusing and shamefully revealing. His meticulous attention to detail—monuments, small objects, the characters’ vocabulary, cultural references—constructs a symbolic mosaic in which individual actions and personal dilemmas evoke the malaise of the present. (Roger Koza)

Radu Jude (Auswahl): THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD (2009), EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY (2012), AFERIM! (2015), SCARRED HEARTS (2016), THE DEAD NATION (2017), I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS (2018), UPPERCASE PRINT (2020), BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (2021), DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (2023), SLEEP 2 (2024), KONTINENTAL ’25 (2025), DRACULA (2025)