By focusing on stories of his country’s past in his two former films, Radu Jude stands out in Today’s Romanian cinema landscape. After the success of last year’s “Aferim!” his new film, “Scarred Hearts,” was presented in the Dare section of the 60th edition of the BFI London Film Festival. Set in a sanatorium for the wealthy in a Romanian seaside town in the thirties, it presents us with Emanuel, who suffers from spinal tuberculosis, leaving him in a cast recovering his torso and binding him to bed. Fighting the despair of illness with eccentricity and romance, he recites poetry or puts himself in awkward positions to pursue physical love. The film’s format and cinematography makes it a real aesthetic wonder, with a masterful use of light, colour and composition.
We met Radu Jude to ask him a few questions about the book adaptation, the visual style of the film, and the choice of Lucian Teodor Rus as the charming but doomed poet Emanuel.
By MAUREEN GUEUNET