‘The New Year That Never Came‘ tells stories from the last two days of non-freedom for the Romanians. It is, incredibly, the debut feature film – at the age of 50! – by director Bogdan Muresanu. A solid, mature, emotional film and a history lesson for those Romanians – alas, too many – who do not know or have forgotten the past of the communist dictatorship. In my opinion, in the history of Romanian cinema, it is a significant film, as was Lucian Pintilie’s ‘Reconstitution’ from 1970. That one was only the second film of Romania’s most important theater and film director in the second half of 20th century.
The action of “The New Year That Never Came” takes place on December 20 and 21, 1989, at the end of the period of the communist dictatorship. The characters of the film, like most of those who lived those times, have neither the feeling nor the hope that they will get to live the change that will take place soon, the fall of communism that had already happened in almost all the countries of Eastern Europe. Even when foreign radio stations announce the protests that started in Timișoara, nothing seems to budge in Bucharest. The Securitate secret police seems all-powerful, the propaganda machine is in full swing, life full of shortages and dominated by fear continues. A Securitate officer manipulates his informants who surveil the lives of students and intellectuals. He also has a mother who is about to be evicted from the house she had lived in all her life, which will be demolished to make way for grandiose buildings in the new city center. A television crew has to urgently change a tribute film to the dictatorship scheduled for New Year’s Eve, in which an actress who had fled to the West appears in the foreground, in a situation reminiscent of the collection of short films ‘Memories from the Golden Age’ of Mungiu. The replacement actress has a crisis of conscience when she is forced to participate in the show. A family enters a crisis after learning that their eight-year-old boy asked in a letter to the communist version of Santa Claus to see Uncle Nicu dead, ‘because that’s what dad wants’. The son of the television director plans to flee the country with a friend across the Danube, the border with Yugoslavia. In the music of Ravel’s Bolero, the narrative planes alternate, the tension builds, the boiling point approaches. Will the mamaliga (Romanian polenta) explode?
I found the narrative construction excellent. At first, the viewer may be a little confused by the multitude of characters and situations, but quite quickly the common denominator (fear, hope suppressed in struggle with resignation, long-repressed anger) and the connections between the characters become clear. For those who lived through that era, the settings and cinematic style create a sense of immersion in the past. All the actors are formidable, but I can’t help mentioning three names: Iulian Postelnicu (who had major roles in at least three good films I’ve seen in the last year), Adrian Vancica and Nicoleta Hâncu. I found the reconstruction of those last days and hours of the dictatorship impressive, with only one major flaw related to the final scene, that of the rally in Palace Square, where a fictional intervention in the key detail of the start of the protest that changed history leaves room for a revisionist interpretation. Romanian cinema has returned, repeatedly, for 35 years now, to the final years of the dictatorship and even to the days when Romania’s fate changed. Several of the resulting films were memorable. “The New Year That Never Came” is a remarkable creation, which adds to this list at a time when politically motivated revisionism fuels the pseudo-nostalgia of those who have forgotten or who did not know the dictatorship.