{"id":19652,"date":"2025-01-11T03:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T03:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/?p=19652"},"modified":"2025-01-11T03:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T03:02:00","slug":"the-new-year-that-never-came","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/?p=19652","title":{"rendered":"The New Year That Never Came"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>The New Year That Never Came (Anul Nou care n-a fost), directed by Bogdan Mure\u0219anu<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just days before the end of 1989, the Romanian capital Bucharest is awash with rumour of awful events said to have taken place in the western city of Timi\u0219oara a few days previously, where a protest against Romania\u2019s dictator Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu is believed to have ended in a massacre.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Romanian television meanwhile, panic. The star of its pre-recorded New Year\u2019s programming has defected. There\u2019s no way that the show, which includes a homage to Romania\u2019s dictator Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu, can be broadcast in its current format with the defector front and centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The show\u2019s director (whose son is planning his own defection, across the Danube to Yugoslavia) launches a search for a last-minute replacement, but the only available candidate\u2014desperate for news of a friend living in Timi\u0219oara\u2014is reluctant to take part, despite knowing that refusal would mean professional suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elsewhere, a once devoted communist faces losing her home in the demolitions that swept central Bucharest in the late 1980s. Her son, an officer in Romania\u2019s secret police (\u2018Not a very good one, clearly, else they wouldn\u2019t be bulldozing my house\u2019) tries to reassure her that moving to an apartment in a new block is for the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Anul Nou care n-a fost (The New Year That Never Came) - Trailer oficial - 2024\" width=\"1220\" height=\"686\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GlTw6_3Ue_U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Helping her move is a factory worker whose own son writes to Father Frost (Father Christmas was persona non grata in communist Romania) asking for a train, a new bag for his mother, and for his father \u2018the death of Uncle Nicu\u2019 [Ceau\u0219escu].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a clever, believable, if at times slow film, director Bogdan Mure\u0219anu brings together the stories of these six very different individuals to create a narrative that takes place in a 24-hour period from the morning of December 21, 1989\u2014the last full day of Ceau\u0219escu\u2019s more than two decades in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Life in communist Romania is depicted as bleak (one scene in a chemist is particularly accurate) although there has been some criticism from those who lived through the period that it\u2019s not depicted as being bleak enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Certainly, the omnipresent fear of the secret police is there, less so the depravation and shortages that afflicted daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The film can also be pulled up for its presumed knowledge of the demolitions, of events in Timi\u0219oara, of the&nbsp;dangers of crossing the Danube, of Ceau\u0219escu\u2019s cult of personality. While Romanian domestic audiences will be familiar such themes, foreigners may not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are minutiae, however. At once terrifying and at times laugh out loud funny this is the first Romanian film to properly tackle the subject of Romania\u2019s revolution.\u00a0Not that it tells the story of that revolution\u2014it instead tells the stories of six people whose lives are about to be changed forever, and is all the better for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The New Year That Never Came can be watched on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/watch\/81957587?trackId=260217074&amp;tctx=8%2C0%2C1fb2d188-cb1f-4815-b1bb-dea3107962bb-15313092%2CNES_005AB5050E631A00B4E464A18FEF82-BF383851A6F1C1-195C1B3794_p_1736348712808%2CNES_005AB5050E631A00B4E464A18FEF82_p_1736348712808%2C%2C%2C%2C81957587%2CVideo%3A81957587%2CminiDpPlayButton\">Netflix<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\" id=\"block-cbcb00d7-ef4f-4114-be61-31d4f9f78a9a\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" id=\"block-03b1fbab-8795-44b0-9155-1e4b3e34d820\"><em>At Emerging Europe, we use an integrated approach centred around market intelligence to help organisations understand trends and strategically position themselves for success. &nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" id=\"block-77523305-48d5-4fee-9f36-164388078046\"><em>Learn how our solutions can help you thrive in the region:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" id=\"block-7566ff06-f7c6-4d45-9c0d-f514a2babea3\"><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/our-story\/\" target=\"_blank\">Company and Services Overview<\/a> | <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/strategic-advantage\/\" target=\"_blank\">Strategic Advantage<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Year That Never Came (Anul Nou care n-a fost), directed by Bogdan Mure\u0219anu Just days before the end of 1989, the Romanian capital Bucharest<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6578],"tags":[8205,6320,6946,237,8203,8204],"class_list":["post-19652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-sport","tag-anul-nou-care-n-a-fost","tag-featured","tag-films","tag-romania","tag-romanian-revolution","tag-the-new-year-that-never-came"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}