BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN (2021): Radu Jude Shakes Up Conventional Sensibilities in His New Film

Radu Jude Shakes Up Sensibilities in Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude claims that ‘red carpet’ glamorization, especially award shows, detracts from the real purpose of moviemaking, and in this he makes a good point. There does seem to be more glitter than glamor to the fanfare of ceremonies. This explains the reason why he took great pride in accepting the first virtual Golden Bear Award at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival for his controversial feature, Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn.

Jude’s producer and fellow Romanian, Ada Solomon, stands with him, shoulder to shoulder, expecting almost certain fallout after Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn gets released in the United States on November 19th. And to be frank, they’re probably right; more than likely, there will be plenty. But Solomon’s primary concern focuses on the social statements of the picture, especially the propriety of sexual expression.

The film’s premise, as the title suggests, concerns a schoolteacher (Katia Pascariu) headed for censure or arrest because her prominent role on a sex video had found its way online, resulting in the expected uproar. The obvious potential for both comedy and drama in this situation is formidable. Based on film’s international acclaim so far, it has been exploited well.

Thematically, of course, blatant displays of sex on the screen, actual or implied, has been a touchy strategy at best, depending on who’s doing what to whom, and subject to at least some quibbling from somewhere. This film, however, aims to do much more and ‘throws down the gauntlet’ at the feet of society with regard to hypocrisy, sex and censorship.

The film’s argument in large part, according to the scuttlebutt, is that depictions of violence do far more harm to the moral fiber of a community than to what extent, if any, the sight of carnality on the screen imposes moral decay.

It seems more likely than not that here in the United States–never one to back down when issues of motion picture morality are on the line–will pick up said gauntlet.

After all, movie censorship has been bred in the American bone since 1922 when the studio moguls themselves formed the Hays Office to rehabilitate their image (translation: ‘boost income’), after public scrutiny of celebrity misadventures.

The advent of television and foreign film imports eroded the authority of the Hays Office until it was replaced by the current rating system in 1969–the same year Midnight Cowboy won the Best Picture as the Academy Awards, the only X-rated film ever to do so. Since then, our public propriety concerning the visual media has changed, but the line remains quite blurred between esthetics and pornography.

American culture still stumbles around and over the function of sex (and most recently, gender expression) issues too private to confront, yet too primal to ignore. Like film, much of the priority seems based in packaging over product.

But the U.S. provides an acid test for Jude’s opus: Romania has submitted Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn for the Foreign Language category in the upcoming Academy Award competition, begging a bunch of questions, among them: Will it be selected? If selected, will it win? If it wins, how will the Industry perceive it–triumph or tribulation?

Leave your thoughts on Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn and its implications below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers looking for more editorials can visit our Editorial Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications of new articles like this one? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, and Flipboard. Information in this editorial was brought to our attention by Sydneysbuzz.