A court clerk tormented by guilt after carrying out an eviction stars in Kontinental '25The magnificent new film by Romanian director Radu Jude (Bucharest, 1977) is now in theaters. The author of Don't expect too much from the end of the world and of An unfortunate fling or crazy porn (Golden Bear at the 2011 BerlinaleHe is one of the key figures in contemporary European cinema, and his films explore, in a striking way, the dilemmas and everyday absurdity of characters searching for their place in a society without a moral compass.

AfterAn unlucky hookup or crazy porn and the masterful Don't expect too much from the end of the worldRadu Jude concludes a sort of (perhaps unintentional?) film trilogy that captures, like no other current film, the drift of contemporary Europe through the tribulations of a female protagonist. With a title that alludes to Europe '51Like Roberto Rossellini's film about the spiritual crisis of a mother (Ingrid Bergman) who loses her son in postwar Italy, the Romanian filmmaker also presents a woman, Orsolya (the magnificent Eszter Tompa), tormented by the conflict caused by the suicide of a homeless man during an eviction.

Why has Romania, the country where the Dracula myth originated, not spawned any vampire films? This seems to be the thought driving the debate. Dracula, the new film by Radu Jude, responsible for essential titles such as An Unfortunate Nail or Crazy Porn and Don't expect too much from the end of the world. But, far from proposing a new adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel or a story more in line with the character's historical basis, Jude pushes for a deconstruction of the commercial appropriations (vampirizations?) of Dracula and vindicates vampire tales with a local stamp in a film that is at the same time many films made from traditions. This three-hour feature includes a popular fable about a tree that grows penises; a tragic love story between rural workers in communist Romania; a revisiting of the figure of Dr. Aslan, the first medical star in the fight against aging who attracted celebrities from all over the world to her Romanian clinic; ironic reinterpretations of the Nosferatu by FW Murnau and by Film by Samuel Beckett; an erotic vampire cabaret for tourists in the heart of Transylvania; and a science fiction story about a workers' revolt, among others. The film is structured as a play. Frankenstein built from diverse stories, served up by a screenwriter who asks an artificial intelligence program to generate different narratives surrounding the famous vampire.