There might have been no communist regime, outside of the Soviet Union, that was more savage than that of Nicolae Ceausescu. He led Romania from 1965 until 1989, creating a personality cult around his full-lipped, full-haired head that was full of Marxist ideas and grand delusions. It is said that Romanians forced a smile on his birthday each year, too fearful of the consequences of looking as miserable as they felt. He and his wife, Elena, were executed after a two-hour show trial televised for those that had survived his rule. Their execution was not shown, though: Members of the firing squad were so eager to kill the couple that they did their work before cameras had a chance to record the event for posterity.
Excerpts from that “tribunal” open a fascinating, three-hour documentary with the strange title “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu.” Elena is mostly silent, while her husband, his death mere hours away, remains defiant, though slightly pathetic. “I will only answer before the Grand National Assembly,” he declares, sitting against a wall, facing someone off-camera. “I don’t know what your masquerade is.”
| On screen |
| ‘The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu’ |
| 3.5 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Nicolae Ceausescu, Elena Ceausescu |
| Director: Andrei Ujica |
| Rated: Not rated |
| Running time: 180 minutes |
He was right, of course: The trial was simply a show. But it was a meaningful one, just as this film might be considered a piece of “entertainment” that also explores one of the most difficult questions we face: the problem of evil.
Director Andrei Ujica left Romania for Germany in 1981, while Ceausescu still ruled. Like most Romanian filmmakers — and the country has been incubating some great ones, including Cristian Mungiu, whose heartbreakingly real “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” won the 2007 Palme d’Or — he’s haunted by his nation’s recent history.
Here he lays bare a great deal of it, though in sometimes silent sequences that the viewers themselves must make an effort to put into context. Communist Party-filmed footage was captured to advance the Ceausescu cult.
We’ll never know what one of history’s monsters thought — if he did at all — of the damage he caused, wounds that still haven’t healed more than two decades after his death. But “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” manages somehow to get us into his twisted mind nonetheless.
