After Christmas Tuesday by Radu Muntean

You are naked. Now start undressing. Or sit comfortably in the cinema and let the big screen do the trick for you. The magic of Radu Muntean’s fourth feature film, Tuesday, After Christmas (MarÅ£i, După Crăciun), must have crept out before the screenings, for it attracted frighteningly long queues in front of the Salle Debussy. Was it the picture of the nude couple in bed in the catalogue? Perhaps the "Romanian New Wave"-effect overflowing the Cannes selection? Or simply the ability of audiences to instinctively sense that they’re about to see something exceptional?

Romanian director Radu Muntean is back in Cannes - after the screening of Boogie last year - to impress audiences once again. This intimate drama involving Paul, his wife Adriana, and his lover, Raluca, begins with naked bodies that continue to undress to the point of moral nudity - when Paul has to choose between the two women. Honest, daring and extremely complex in content, yet simple and clear in form, the film manages to establish a refined balance of convincing depth and nuances of lightness.

The sequences, packed with well-written dialogues, are mainly composed of still shots rather than fragmented by editing. The elegant way of sliding the focus is beautifully subtle in guiding our attention, which eventually gets glued to the screen, and then falls off in amazement at the end. An exceptional film and certainly a highlighted regard in this year’s festival selection.

By Erzsébet Plájás