‘Malmkrog’: Cristi Puiu’s New Thought-Provoking Movie On MUBI
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‘Malmkrog’: Cristi Puiu’s New Thought-Provoking Movie On MUBI

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Malmkrog, the newest film by Romanian director Cristi Puiu, is now available to view on the curated streaming platform MUBI, an exclusive streaming premiere from April 3.  Out of all the films being released this weekend across the different streaming platforms, Puiu’s 200-minutes long film is one of the most thought-provoking.

Cristi Puiu, best known for his second feature film The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu (Moartea domnului Lăzărescu) in 2005, creates with Malmkrog an intriguing period drama that debates philosophical questions as relevant today as they were more than a hundred years ago. Adapted from a text written by Russian philosopher and poet Vladimir Solovyov, Malmkrog follows the conversations of five aristocrats who debate (in French) subjects that range from religion and war, to good and evil.

The film is divided into six parts, or chapters, each after one of the aristocrats’ names—Ingrida (Diana Sakalauskaité), the wife of a Russian general, Edouard (Ugo Broussot), a Franco-Russian aristocrat, Nicolaï (Frédéric Schulz-Richard), their host in this Transylvanian manor in which the entire film takes place, Olga (Marina Palii), a young devout Christian woman, and Madeleine (Agathe Bosch), a French woman. Only the second chapter bears the name of one of the servants, István (István Téglás), a mostly-silent presence throughout the film.

What brings these five individuals under the same roof is unclear, as is their relation to one another. There are hints of a wider context, with the opening images of a little girl in the snow, who only reappears for a minute in the background, almost as a comic relief from the incessant adult conversations, when she is dragged away from the dining room by her nurse, or with the images of the old man, sick in bed. How each of these elements are connected together is never clearly explained or shown. The film instead oscillates between the intense conversations the five characters are having and the moments of silence in which the servants of the house are watched doing their work.

The topics raised by the five aristocrats are each intensely debated, with subjects such as whether murder, or the act of killing, is always an evil act, or how politeness pushed to its extreme can be detrimental. The overarching theme of their conversations dances around the subject of good and evil. The five characters debate how the two can co-exist and balance out, searching through Christian gospels to find their answer. As the discussions progresses, the differences in opinion become more apparent.

What is most distinctive about Malmkrog is the way Puiu films these intense discussions. Puiu brings its audience right in the middle of the conversations like a sixth participant who would have chosen to stay silent and observe the debate unfold. Cinematographer Tudor Vladimir Panduru’s camera movements feel independent, removed from any conventional rules of filming conversations, for example, characters stand at times off frame while delivering their opinions, while at others, their backs are to the camera. Door frames often stand between the characters and the camera, as if removed and detached from the main action of the film, like a silent listener.

While the five friends are in the midst of their philosophical debates, a seemingly-invisible tension is brewing. Nothing seems to be able to stop the conversations. Even after a moment of exploding violence, the debate returns as if it had never been interrupted. The film thus suggests that the ideas, the questions raised during these conversations never cease, never die. The same debates will resurface after a revolution (which by its very definition seeks to overturn what was once established), and the conversation will continue as before.

Near the beginning of Malmkrog, Ingrida exclaims that too much philosophical debate can dizzy the mind, and indeed, 200 minutes of philosophizing does bewilder, but it is masterfully executed by Puiu, who creates here a daring and thought-provoking film.