Bacalaureat (Cristian Mungiu, 2016)

The third feature by Mungiu, director of the acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which was centred around an illegal abortion in Communist Romania, Graduation tackles equally serious social themes as a girl is raped the day before her high-school finals. This jeopardises her chances of qualifying for her scholarship at a university in England and her father decides to take control of matters, going behind her back to influence the examination officials.
His motives are convoluted: we see that he's far more concerned with getting his daughter out of a place that he repeatedly tells her she does not have a future in than with the inconvenience of what has happened to her. We see more of his emotional reaction to the incident than we do of hers; he's emasculated by it and, as with the balancing act he has between his wife and his mistress, more concerned with being seen to do the right thing than actually taking the wishes of others into account.
Likewise, Romanian society is depicted as a hopeless tangle: it subsists on backroom deals, back-scratching and outright bribery, and if the director is being excessively pessimistic in his view, it's a very convincing picture all the same. Nothing is morally clear-cut, and there is correspondingly no tidy dramatic conclusion either. It's one of those films that raises questions that linger on, and while it could have benefited from a more cinematic sensibility to add contrast, it is nevertheless a satisfyingly adult piece of film-making.

7/10