The Romanian New Wave Crests: Cristian Mungiu's 'Beyond the Hills'

By Costica BradatanSeptember 21, 2013

The Romanian New Wave Crests: Cristian Mungiu's 'Beyond the Hills'

Cristian Mungiu took the film world by storm in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile), which won that year's Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2012, he came up with an equally challenging work, Beyond the Hills (După dealuri), which was at once well received (winning two important awards at the 2012 Cannes Festival) and hotly debated. Los Angeles Review of Books has invited a handful of people to talk about the  significance of the film and the story behind it: Anikó Imre, Jean Harris, Clara Dawson and Jolyon Mitchell, as well as Cristian Mungiu himself. 


— Costica Bradatan 


 


Aniko ImreANIKÓ IMRE: Romania, the post-Ceauşescu church, and the figure of the tragic lesbian.


[READ


 


Christian MungiuLARB editor COSTICA BRADATAN interviews CRISTIAN MUNGIU


 [READ]


 


 


Mitchell and DawsonCLARA DAWSON and JOLYON MITCHELL on religion, pharamaceuticals, violence, and asceticism.


 [READ]


  


Jean HarrisJEAN HARRIS on the true story behind the film.


[READ]

LARB Contributor

Costica Bradatan is a professor of humanities in the Honors College at Texas Tech University in the United States and an honorary research professor of philosophy at University of Queensland in Australia. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the Philosophers (Bloomsbury, paperback, 2018) and In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility (Harvard University Press, 2023). His work has been translated into more than 20 languages, including Dutch, Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, and Farsi. Bradatan also writes book reviews, essays, and op-ed pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, Aeon, The New Statesman, and other similar venues.

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