Radu Jude’s ironic yet sobering film Aferim!, an Eastern European production by Romania/Bulgaria/Czech Republic, describes the enslavement of the Roma during 1835 Walachia through the adventures of bounty-hunter Costandin and his son Ionita as they set out on a quest to capture the runaway gypsy slave Carfin and return him lawfully (yet immorally) to his rightful landowner. Most of the film shots are conservatively tripod-still and wide-angle, stretching the horizon line and extending space in the expense of close details, so that the very first impression of Costandin and Ionita is one likened to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as they enter and exit the scene—black specks on horseback. It is in this caricature that Costandin amiably greets an old crow driving a cart of goods only to end up berating her as farewell. These jerky instances reveal anachronistic behavior challenging the uniform/authority (whether it be the landowner or God). Costandin, for example, as a respectable man should never bring himself to speak in such a manner not only to the elderly but also later to a priest. However, the priest himself lacks the tact of professionalism, openly condemning Jews, gypsies, Turks, Romanians through respective stereotypes. Despite his vulgar use of language and at times actions, Constandin remains honest to his vocation and its ethics; he refuses to free Carfin even on a guilty conscience. A strong sense of duty becomes a betrayal of his sense of morality yet the film makes one question the standard of that moral compass. The root of evil returns back to the landowner’s wife who indulges in the sensual, tempting men who cannot help themselves. The film, from the very beginning, revels in the complexities of Romanian identity, especially revealing of misogynistic patriarchy, localized control, and nationalistic attitudes many of which continue to re-surface today.

The film enjoyed international success, winning the 2016 Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival and was a strong contender for the Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. It was one of the few films to address the slavery of the Roma that was abolished in the 1850s and deal with cinema of the European periphery, often marginalized but strongly advertised under the director’s fame. The treatment of the Roma then opens discussion to the second-class treatment of the Roma now, and in this frank exploration, Aferim! overcomes “fatalism through ironic distance and black humor” (Hendrykowski). In other respects, however, as much as it inscribes itself in the New Wave, it fails to address the issues in a more pressing and immediate manner, and in this way, reinforces stereotypes that are made within the film. When contrasted with the films of Emir Kusturica who builds a comprehensive, magical, immersion into gypsy communities, creating an empathetic Other in the viewer much more effectively, Aferim! is a rather poorly and crudely executed film.