Radu Jude’s DRACULA


I’m still a long way from seeing all the features to date of the prolific and often brilliant Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, but what’s really exceptional about this one is it’s the very first I don’t much care for. At 170 minutes, it seems a good hour longer than it needs to be. Not so much an adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel or a commentary on its diverse movie versions (though it intermittently fluctuates between both and various self-referential conceits), it’s also a compendium of crude and adolescent sexual gags and diverse swipes at capitalism, but even a few striking visual effects and moments of more cultivated wit can’t compensate for all the dross and hammy overstatements. Jude’s Kontinental 25, playing at the same Chicago festival, is every bit as repetitious but much more substantial and interesting. (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

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