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Halfway through a recent Zoom interview with Radu Jude, the acclaimed Romanian director of \u201cDo Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,\u201d he offered a glimpse into his creative process. He pulled out one of the books he\u2019s reading, an illustrated tome about commedia dell\u2019arte. Then he shared his screen to reveal a collection of texts and images \u2014 Van Gogh still lifes, Giacometti sculptures, Japanese haikus \u2014 saved in folders on his computer. Jude stopped scrolling at a picture he took of a sign posted on an apartment building entrance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt says \u2018Please have oral sex so as not to disturb the other tenants,\u2019\u201d Jude explained, translating from the Romanian with a grin on his face.<\/p>\n
The autodidact Jude is not above a dirty joke. His work melds tragedy and farce, drawing promiscuously from art, literature, street ads and social media to fuel his brazen visions of Romanian history and contemporary life.<\/p>\n
Jude\u2019s previous film, the Golden Bear-winner \u201cBad Luck Banging or Loony Porn<\/a>,\u201d starts out with the making-of a humorously sloppy sex tape and concludes with a witch trial against one of the tape\u2019s participants. His latest, \u201cDo Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,\u201d arrives in U.S. theaters on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The black comedy follows Angela (Ilinca Manolache), a film production assistant who spends most of her 16-hour workdays in her car, shuttling clients and equipment around Bucharest, Romania\u2019s capital. One of Angela\u2019s gigs entails interviewing former factory employees who were injured on the clock for a chance to feature in a corporate safety video. Scenes from the present-day, shot in black-and-white, are interwoven with colorful clips of another woman named Angela: a taxi driver in the 1980s also chained to a thankless job that involves navigating the streets of Bucharest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Jude, 46, was born and raised in Bucharest, and lived through the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. After graduating from film school, he cut his teeth in the Romanian film industry in the early 2000s directing commercials and corporate films. Exploitation on these sets was rife, Jude recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cRomania was a haven for international productions from all over the world because of the cheap locations and labor,\u201d he said: Working preposterously long hours was expected. \u201cAt the time, I thought it was romantic and part of the mythology of cinema,\u201d Jude added. \u201cThen I remember hearing about one guy who was pushed to work without sleep: \u2018Just one more coke, one more red bull.\u2019\u201d The man eventually died in a car crash.<\/p>\n Manolache said that Jude instructed her to watch Andy Warhol movies and performances by Nico of \u201cThe Velvet Underground\u201d to infuse her gig-economy workhorse with a punk energy. The character\u2019s sequined dress and constant bubble-gum-chewing help give off this rogue vibe, but her outlaw behavior comes through most powerfully when she\u2019s playing Bobita, an online alter-ego that Manolache created independently of the film, but who appears in frenzied outbursts throughout it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n