The Romanian New Wave might not excite mainstream audiences much, but it's been gathering increasing fans among savvy arthouse audiences since the mid-'00s. Something of a benched player on the cultural circuit pre-2000, Romania has come firrmly onto the scene with festival domination and critical deference, and within this New World of indie sensations, Cristian Mungiu is, well, kind of a big deal.
After the eye-watering "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," which bagged Romania’s first Palme d’Or in 2007, the screenwriter and director was back in Cannes five years later to collect Best Screenplay and Best Actress Awards (shared jointly by Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan) for the follow-up, "Beyond the Hills," for which a teaser trailer has just been aired online. If the promo (and our Cannes review) is anything to go by, "Beyond the Hills," an account of exorcism in a rural Romanian community will track the plight of women ensnared in cultural dogma with the same searing minimalism of its predecessor.
Prepping for a limited U.S. release on March 8th, this kind of picture is unlikely to fly with mass audiences who like their exorcisms juicy (chances of 360-degree head-rotation incidents are slim), but the weight of critical approval – it stood in 8th position on Sight and Sound’s Best of 2012 List – should give it a certain amount of interest from cinephiles when it hits next month. [Criterion Cast]