Horst_In_Translation Review of Videograms of a Revolution

Videograms of a Revolution (1992)

Turbulent times in Romanian history

[6/10 · 19 September 2016]

"Videogramme einer Revolution" or "Videogram of a Revolution" is a co-production between German and Romania and this film was made back in 1992, which means next year it will have its 25th anniversary. The duo who wrote this and directed it too were Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica. Ujica is certainly now known today (anymore) to people outside Romania or here in Germany in particular, but he brings the connection to the contents of this film and without him this never would have been made. Farocki, however, is known here in Germany because of his many works in the last decades, even if he is certainly not as much of a household name either like Christian Petzold for example with whom he worked on several movies. This film is a first-hand recording of the tumultuous events in the late 1980s in Germany when violent dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were overthrown and executed by the Romanian people and the Romanian Army. Everything you see and hear during these 105 minutes is video and audio footage from back then. You see the people riot in the streets, under the balcony, you see television news coverage and what happened during these shows in the face of this revolution and of course there are also many interviews in here, mostly with normal people like you and me from the streets and how they saw it all. And you see how some of the bad guys (from the Ceausescus posse, his longtime helpers) are arrested and the police officers have difficulties to control their aggressions against this regime. This is basically all what this film is about and you need to decide for yourself if this sounds appealing enough to sit through this for 100 minutes and longer. I myself think this was a decent watch. It may have been slightly shorter, but as a whole it is still a really convincing and important achievement and for Romanians I would even call it close to a must-see. Everybody else needs to decide if the end of the Cold War era and the country this is about in particular is interesting enough for them to check this one out. I give it a thumbs-up.