The Romanian director Cristian Mungiu made his international breakthrough with the powerful abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" that won the Golden Palm in Cannes in 2007. In his latest film "Graduation" he describes how moral compromises blights and corrodes a seemingly honorable person in a thoroughly corrupt Romanian society.
It begins with a stone being thrown through the window of surgeon Romeo in the city of Cluij. Is it a bad omen? Romeo's ambitious daughter Eliza is about to take a graduation test that will determine if she'll be awarded a scholarship for Cambridge or not. The father and mother desperately want her to leave the country and not make the same mistake as them, that is, returning to Romania after the studies abroad. On the same day, Eliza is subjected to a rape attempt and is naturally not able to take the test. At the police station, a commissioner and friend of the father suggests that they call a certain person with influence. Perhaps a local bigshot can skip the queue for a liver transplant and make it possible for Eliza to pass her exam. Romeo has entered the murky path of double standards and lies. What happens over the course of the next few days not only puts the father, but also the daughter in a pressed and conflicted situation.
Mungiu's dense script is filled with everyday details around the moral drama. He develops his realistic narrative style from the previous films. The camera is usually not resting on Romeo's face, but rather behind his head. This means that the viewer sees what Romeo sees and thus avoids being manipulated by the emotional expressions of the face. It paradoxically both adds and subtracts to the realism. The understated acting is consistently brilliant.
"Graduation" is an unsentimental journey through dim-lit hospital corridors, worn out residential areas and dull police stations in a society steeped in dishonesty, corruption, favoritism and money under the table. It turns out that Romeo's moral integrity was already defiled as his lover is discovered. There is no resolution. In the end we're left with the question whether immoral and corrupt people create an immoral and corrupt society, or if it's the other way around. Mungiu doesn't give us an answer, but forces us to twist and turn our moral compass. Brilliant filmmaking through and through.