The theme that dominates throughout Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Romanian: Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc) is that of unequivocal chaos, and Radu Jude is clearly relishing in this fact. The director, who has previously made some equally fascinating films, has crafted a film that is best described as pure cinematic anarchy. Composed of three distinct acts, each one of them building on the last, both in terms of tone and intention, this peculiar dark comedy is about as scathing as a satire can get, especially in how the director (who has rarely been known to be capable of holding back on the blistering commentary) pays tribute to the philosophical belief that life is composed from a combination of comedy and tragedy, which is the final word in a bizarre but captivating montage that serves as the centrepiece of this film. Throughout the film, Jude is looking at a number of very relevant themes – the conflict between desire and puritanical values, the role the media plays in constructing the general consensus on particular issues, and (most prominently) the idea of sexuality, and how it often finds itself interwoven with discourse surrounding decency, which is a conversation that is not only perpetual across societies, but seems to be neverending. Carefully placed into this riveting combination of psychological thriller and absurdist dark comedy, with healthy servings of bleak social satire to help get the central message across, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is something that needs to be experienced to fully understand, with the extent to which Jude and his collaborators show themselves willing to go for the sake of an obvious but important message making for profoundly fascinating viewing, and a film that will undoubtedly continue to age as one of the most important satires of the past few decades, especially in how it touches on some unexpectedly common themes that many of us can undoubtedly relate to in some way.

There are many questions being asked throughout Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, and Jude acknowledges that there are broader discussions to be had. However, he is not intent on answering the questions – instead, he is doing the complete opposite, inciting complete chaos for the sake of not only entertainment, but to bewilder audiences outright. This is about as postmodern as a film can be, with the complete and utter incredulity towards metanarratives being enough to entirely redefine the movement and consider it a relic of the past. Jude is an undeniably gifted filmmaker, but he is primarily an agent provocateur, someone whose work is rarely for the sake of ordinary entertainment, but rather carries a deeper meaning that only manifests once we step out of the immediate surroundings and try and make sense of the two hours of complete and utter pandemonium that we have just endured. As a result, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is an acquired taste, and audiences (much like the characters that occupy the third portion of the film) are entirely divided on what to think about it. This response is not a sign of failure, but the contrary: in telling this story, which centres on the issue of morality at both a primordial and socio-cultural level, the director evokes conversations that are rarely had in the media, primarily because this film dares to be the exact instrument of social disorder that it is criticizing. Only someone with both a sense of humour and a willingness to make something that is profoundly a contradiction of its own values can effectively take on such a challenge, and Jude does it with such remarkable ease, that it is almost more bewildering that he managed to convince us that this film was leading to one particular destination, while knowingly steering us rapidly off course at the first moment he could. This film is a tumultuous journey in the truest sense of the word – we don’t have any idea of where it is actually going to take us, but the experience becomes much less daunting once we just surrender to the fact that not everything needs to make perfect sense, and that absurdity is as poignant a tool for social commentary than the most hard-hitting realism.

The title of this film is certainly not misleading in any way, nor is it intentionally trying to stir interest in the project – Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is just as profane and provocative as its title would suggest, with Jude making sure that he gives the audience everything we’d expect from a film that is so ambitiously labelled. The premise of the central storyline is extremely simple – the first half focuses on the main character as she navigates the day before a hearing that could potentially cause her to lose her job after an unfortunate video is leaked onto the internet, while the second is dedicated entirely to this hearing, which starts as a relatively conventional affair, but rapidly deteriorates into pure chaos, the kind that harbours many secrets, ranging from hilarious to sinister. There’s a particular blend of reality and absurdity that propels the film and makes it so enticing, especially when it is at its most multilayered, since we are never quite sure in which direction this story is going to go, and Jude’s directorial methods are questionable enough to warrant further scrutiny from those who are struggling to grasp the satirical elements of the story. Centring a film around frank discussions of sexuality, particularly in defining the boundaries between passion between two individuals and pornography, was risky at the very least – but pushing boundaries has always been one of Jude’s most fascinating traits as a filmmaker, and using this peculiar story as a starting-point, he manages to carefully renegotiate certain concepts, defining them along the lines of his own bizarre vision, while never deviating too far from the status quo that it becomes unrecognizable. Instead, he puts together something that is surreal but understandable, albeit only to a certain degree. Great satire doesn’t always need to make its intentions clear, so reconfiguring a simple story of the mishandling of a sex tape into a daring statement on the nature of life in post-Soviet society is a bold move on the part of the director, but one that makes sense once we are able to latch onto his strange but enthralling wavelength.

Ultimately, as much as we want to look at Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn as 100 minutes of pure anarchy, there is structure to this film that grounds it within reality and gives it nuance, rather than allowing it to be derailed by the weight of its own ambition. As a whole, the film is one constructed out of the fragments of the past – despite being set within the contemporary era (to the point where it is one of the first major films to explicitly take place during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in how it doesn’t structure the story around the current health crisis, but rather uses it to show how it has become part of the lives of everyone globally), the film pays remarkable attention to previous decades and the generations that populated it. There is a dedicated approach to exploring the history of Romania that can only come on behalf of a filmmaker who has as firm a grasp, not only on his craft, but on the entire artistic movement in which he is working, as well as the history of his nation. Any cursory glance at the history of Europe will prove that Romania endured many challenges, being a country impacted by many social and political issues that ravaged the lives of people, and the aftershocks still remain, decades later. This is where Jude is at his most dedicated, since his decision to deconstruct the tumultuous past of Romania and filter it through the lens of absurdist comedy, while bizarre, worked out exceptionally well, especially in how he demonstrates the process of a character navigating a hostile version of the world. Jude is angry and bitter, but not cynical – he does see some kind of hope, it just comes in the form of a deranged dark comedy that uses something as universal as sexuality and the discourse surrounding it to make some bold statements on the nature of the media, and the supposed morals and values held by the conservative population, who fail to see that their own hypocrisy is what is causing the societal degradation that they preach against – one of the many peculiar qualities of this otherwise fascinating film.

It’s certainly easy to view Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn as a social statement, and this is essentially the majority of what makes it such a unique film. However, we can’t neglect the artistry, since not only does the film have a strong message that functions as a sincere call-to-arms for anyone willing to fight against the tyrannical dominance of puritanical values, but it is exceptionally well-crafted, proving that a film can easily be both philosophically profound and artistically resonant. Jude is not a director who plays by the rules – in fact, his modus operandi is often to entirely dismantle everything that is held to be true about the artistic process. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is composed of three segments, the first and third being centred around the same story of a school teacher who has to face the consequences when an intimate video is leaked onto the internet, and the central being a series of short fragments relating to a range of ideas that are only vaguely associated with the central narrative. It may appear that this is a disjointed film, especially since about a third of it is dedicated to what seem to be arbitrary clips extracted from a range of different sources – but like any good postmodern work, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn defines the idea of the text being “a tissue of quotations”, drawing inspiration from many different roots. It’s not so much what they mean individual as it is what they stand for when put together, and contrasted with the final act, which is a one of the most hilariously tense 45 minutes in film history, culminating in an ending that is more absurd than nearly anything the viewer is likely to have seen in recent years, which is logical when we consider all the ideas that are filtered through the film. On a purely artistic and narrative level, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is extremely strange, but in a way that is extraordinarily effective, which only makes it even more of a work of unhinged brilliance, since it is far easier to have a film with a strong message and deliver it through more simple message than it is to submerge the viewer in one of the most nightmarishly eccentric visions of the world that surrounds them.

The blisteringly funny execution of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn only strengthens the message at the heart of the film, and Jude proves that there is method to the madness, even if we need to wander around this carnivalesque version of the world to fully understand it. The sensation of watching this film is the same as that of getting lost in a labyrinth of the most grotesque imagery, but where the horror comes not from how otherwordly these terrors are, but rather how they are so recognizable, and yet somehow uncanny to us. It’s one of the sharpest social satires in decades, and almost approaches the territory of another celebrated provocateur from a previously Soviet country, the great Serbian master Dušan Makavejev, in how it uses crude sexual themes as a platform on which it can effectively critique the culture and its relationship to desire and morality in contrast to Soviet (or post-Soviet) mentalities. It takes some time to fully comprehend the sheer scope of this film, and it is easy to get confused – but as the master of postmodernism famously asked, “why should things be easy to understand?”, and this has never been more true than it has been in Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a film that embraces perversity while evading controversy by showing the inherent debauchery that simmers beneath even the most conservative societies, and using it as a starting point for a hilariously irreverent and hauntingly bleak examination of the human condition, all through the lens of an off-the-wall dark comedy that carries much more weight than the polarizing exterior would lead you to believe. Once again, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is not for everyone, but for those brave enough to voyage into Jude’s bizarre world, you will be suitably confused and appropriately rewarded, which is more than enough to warrant the praise and acclaim that the film has received, and will continue to receive in subsequent years as more audiences become victims of its deceptively brilliant charms.