Catching up with one of 2017's best films: Cristian Mungiu's quietly riveting GRADUATION

Out now on Blu-ray/DVD from The Criterion Collection and brimming with first-rate Special Edition Features, GRADUATION, the latest film from terrifically talented Romanian writer/director Cristian Mungiu, was first seen theatrically in the USA back in April of 2017. It is by far the best of the four of his films I've so far seen -- which also include Beyond the Hills, Four Months Three Weeks and Two Days, and the smart, ironic and underseen Tales From the Golden Age -- and it is a major leap forward for the amazing Mr. Mungiu, shown below.

Graduation is all about connections and their usage. So many of the movies that have come out of the Eastern Bloc over the past decade -- since the fall of that wall and the splitting off of the Soviet empire -- have dealt with this idea of how all-important were/are  "connections" during and since the end of Communist rule.

Once again the Romanian writer/director bears out this idea in his story of a family soon-to-be in crisis, due to its use of connections, together with a very slippery morality amongst just about everyone involved in this sad, gray tale.

A bricked tossed through an apartment window begins the film. Why? And by whom? We wonder, as does the family at the center of the film: a father (Adrian Ttitieni, above) and mother (Lia Bugnar, below) intent of having their only daughter graduate with honors so that she can attend a university and then a medical school in the west. Present-day Romania, it seems, is nowhere in which you'd want to your beloved offspring to grow into adulthood.

The daughter herself (Maria Dragus, below), as we learn from the outset, seems not so keen on this idea, having grown a little too close to her boyfriend and not wanting to leave behind her other friends. When the girl appears to have been attacked on her way to school and may not be able to take the tests she'll need to graduate, Dad goes into immediate action, using every connection he has and calling in every debt he is owed (or imagines that he is owed) to ensure his daughter's welfare/endeavor.

Then morality of all this is suspect from the outset and simply grows worse as the movie moves along. How everyone involved proves so easily corruptible, together with the lengths to which most of them will go to ensure their own welfare, is handled just about perfectly: neither too heavy-handedly nor too easily. We see each person's problems, as well as the "bigger picture," and so we understand how this is all happening, even as we also wonder how we would react in such a situation.

Mungiu is by now a master at this kind of dark social satire. He is also uber-competent at finding just the right situation -- important yet nothing too awful or life-threatening -- to bring out the kind of behavior he wants to point up. Yet he is also a grand entertainer with an ability, via exceptional casting, writing and directing, to bring out the worst in the best way.

The film fairly drips with irony, though the drips are so light and frequent that you barely notice some of them. Eventually, they're a flood. TrustMovies is sorry he did not see this film sooner, for it would have made his 2017 Best List for certain (he'll place it there now, in any case). From Criterion, in Romanian with English subtitles and running a lengthy but consistently engrossing 127 minutes, it is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.

Among the grand Special Features included on the disc is a terrific new interview with filmmaker Mungiu, and wonderfully informative video of the Cannes Film Festival press conference from 2016 featuring a Q&A with the director and several of his actors, including the very hot-looking young man (Rares Andrici, below) who plays the daughter's interesting but quite unsettling boyfriend.

Catching up with Steven Spielberg's THE POST -- yet another of last year's "bests"

Why did it take TrustMovies so long to finally go see THE POST -- the Steven Spielberg-directed and Liz Hannah/Josh Singer-written movie about the release of the Pentagon Papers and the ensuing freedom-of-press fight between the then-current Nixon administration and The New York Times and The Washington Post? I'm not sure, but when I finally got around to it yesterday at a local Boca Raton theater, I was riveted from first scene to last. This is mainstream movie-making at its very best. 

Some study (if not any actual memory) of history will be a big help to younger audiences viewing the film, but what is most impressive -- outside of Mr,. Spielberg's crack direction which, thankfully, goes over the top only once (the unnecessary soaring of John Williams' music at the film's climax) -- is its incredibly adept screenplay by Ms Hannah (above, left) and Mr. Singer (above, right) that compresses events so well that we follow the entire story easily and delightedly, but also with unexpected trepidation -- due to what is going on in our country today.

Even if many of us will remember the outcome of what happened here, we certainly did not know the details -- nor could we imagine how well and how fully the screenwriters, director and magnificent cast bring these all to fine life.

Not only do Singer and Hannah get the big details right, they manage to insert some lovely small ones, too (that lemonade stand!), that bring the movie additional heft, while providing just the right touch of humor and savvy. Leaving this pair out of the Oscar nominees seems especially stupid. Ditto the absence of Mr. Spielberg in the Best Director category.

And, while we're on the subject: Tom Hanks' omission as Best Actor, too. His performance here as Ben Bradlee (above, right) is as good as he has ever given us, letting us see sides of this actor that have so far been kept under wraps. Meryl Streep's performance as Katherine Graham (above, left) is as on-the-mark as this actress always manages, and she once again garners another nomination to add to her many.

What may surprise you most among the crack cast assembled here, is how good (and how extraordinarily different from what they so often are asked to do) are actors like Bruce Greenwood (above, right, playing Robert McNamara) and Bob Odenkirk (as Ben Bagdikian).

Aside from the skill with which the movie has been made, what makes it so important just now is the chance to see and understand what freedom of the press means to America and why we are in danger of losing it to our present Republican-led executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. What The Pentagon Papers proved was how several administrations -- Democratic and Republican -- had consistently lied to the American people about the war that was currently being waged. Now we are seeing and hearing these kinds of lies again, along with those concerning almost everything else. The change that has now occurred is that too many Americans can no longer differentiate a fact from a fib. Suddenly, just about anything can be labeled "fake news."

Put The Post on your must-see list, either now or once it hits home video. From 20th Century Fox and running just under two hours, the movie, which appears to have pretty remarkable "legs," is undoubtedly still playing in a theater near you. Click here to find those closest to your particular neighborhood.

2017's Best-of-the-Year List -- with RAT FILM and THEIR FINEST on top of a very large heap

There are literally so many movies this year vying for a place at the top that I finally had to choose both a documentary (Rat Film) and a narrative (Their Finest). Both seem to me so special in so many ways that, since I first viewed them months ago, they have remained prominently on my mind, in the first case, or with second, simply risen to the top.

I've seen Their Finest twice now. The first time I thought it was very good, but since that second viewing, it has grown ever higher in my estimation. One thing I left out of my original review is the way in which this film posits the difference between life and movies. How Their Finest brings that explanation to bear upon its story is simply extraordinary. The way it puts us in touch with what movies can accomplish is quite wonderful, too. The only other film this year that manages this -- in a very different manner -- is The Shape of Water, my runner-up for best narrative movie.

Rat Film -- in both its style and content, its concept and execution -- is so remarkable that it simply takes its place as a kind of instant classic. All about Baltimore, rats and racism, this movie deserves to be seen by as many viewers as possible.

The complete "best list" (including the two films above) is listed below in the order in which each movie opened throughout the year.

Click on any of the title links in order to access TrustMovies' complete review of the film in question. (Or simply to discover which film the title even refers to: Some of these movies are small enough -- or provocative enough and thus, of course, necessary to silence -- to have gotten past far too many mainstream viewers and reviewers, too.)

Fifteen of these 46 films are documentaries; it was a very good year for this format. One of the narrative features  -- The Hippopotamus (below) -- only saw one-night-only-in-selected-cities theatrical release before hitting DVD/Blu-ray. Another -- Hypernormalisation (above) -- so far as I know, opened only at the Cinefamily in L.A., a venue that has now closed down, thanks to the ongoing sexual abuse scandals sweeping the country.

I have not seen nearly all the movies that became available theatrically, via DVD or streaming over the past year. Nor has any critic. So simply take this list as a kind of recommendation of movies, particularly those that are smaller and less known, that you ought to at least consider viewing.

Enjoy -- and Happy New Year!

THE BEST OF 2017

PARIS 05:59 THEO & HUGO

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO

TONI ERDMANN (from 2016 but opened here in Florida in 2017)

KEDI

THE SETTLERS and BEN-GURION EPILOGUE

HYPERNORMALISATION

AMERICAN ANARCHIST

A QUIET PASSION

GRADUATION

HEAL THE LIVING

THEIR FINEST

THE LOST CITY OF Z

HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY

LIKE CRAZY

CHUCK

ONE WEEK AND A DAY

NIGHT SCHOOL

DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME

BEATRIZ AT DINNER

THE JOURNEY

OKJA

LOST IN PARIS

KILLING GROUND

ESCAPES

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

COLUMBUS

THE SUMMER OF ALL MY PARENTS

THE TEACHER

SPETTACOLO

RAT FILM

CHURCHILL

BENDING THE ARC

FACES PLACES

BETTER WATCH OUT

THE FLORIDA PROJECT

WONDERSTRUCK

PRINCESS CYD

THE SQUARE

BITCH

QUEST

NO GODS, NO MASTERS (a French TV doc, but only available in the US now on DVD)

MUDBOUND

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

THE SHAPE OF WATER

DOWNSIZING