Teacher in trouble: Emi (Katia Pascariu) pleads with the PTA in ‘Bad Luck Banging’.
BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN *** (106 minutes; subtitled) R
We’ve been living with the coronavirus for two years now and the film industries of the world should hang their heads in shame that they have not reflected this reality in movies.
Yet now, thankfully, we have Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a Covid-aware film from Romania that sensitively observes all the cautionary measures we must abide by to ensure public safety, including the proper wearing of face masks and social distancing.
In one scene a woman whose mask has slid down her nose a bit is admonished with the sharp command “Mask!”. She then adjusts it in accordance with public health advice so that it properly covers the bridge of the nose.
In another scene where people attend a meeting the film is careful to emphasize how all the seats are at least 1.5 metres apart, thus emphasizing the importance of social distancing.
In the age of Covid, the film deserves special kudos for using the medium of cinema to reinforce the primacy of these safety measures that are designed to minimize the risk of the infection spreading from person to person.
Most admirable is how deftly Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn incorporates the importance of mask wearing and social distancing into its story, which is about a virus of a different kind.
When high school teacher Emi (Katia Pascariu) makes a sex video with her husband she soon discovers it has hit the internet, bringing her the type of fame she doesn’t need.
As she tries sorting out the mess we get a series of satirical glimpses into the mood of the people and of the country.The subsequent portrait of the national character these scenes create underscores the fact that Bad Luck Banging or loony Porn, written and directed by Radu Jude, received no funding support, co-operation or endorsement from the Romanian Tourism Office.
The film is divided in three parts. The first shows Emi dealing with the crisis; the third sees her at a meeting of parents and school officials where they discuss the scandal to decide whether she should stay or go.
How matters work out for Emi becomes a form-bending exercise for Radu Jude who engages in some narrative playfulness as we see various outcomes played out, with considerable comic effect.
Then there’s a middle bit comprising a cascade of images and captions that are a bit confounding, not least because the captions disappear so quickly you often don’t have time to read them.
There are a couple of laughs, but the whole segment seems jarring and largely unrelated to the braoder narrative. Perhaps the DVD and streaming version will give people the option to skip over this section.
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn features quite a few scenes of sexual activity, some of it entirely unsimulated. The film’s opening stanza, for instance, is pretty full on, and funny, as Emi and her hubby try to film their POV porno with the reality of their domestic nest imposing on their intimacy from the other side of a presumably locked door.
As far as grabbing an audience’s attention from the get go, it doesn’t waste any time.
Though it’s certainly startling, how shocking it actually is will depend on your exposure to such material.
In terms of non-pornographic feature films, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn – the title is a tease; this isn’t a porn film – is actually nothing new.
The use of unsimulated sex and sexual activity in non-porn movies has been evolving over the past 25 years or so, the most notable films including: Angels & Insects (1995); Romance (1999); Baise-moi (2000); Intimacy (2001); Ken Park (2002); 9 Songs (2004); Shortbus (2006); and Nymphomaniac (2013).
Attitudes have certainly progressed.
One recalls with misty-eyed nostalgia sitting in a packed cinema watching Baise-moi, which was playing to sold-out sessions at the Lumiere cinema (now gone) before it was banned from public view because it was so dangerous.
The film is now easily available on DVD.