Autobiografia Lui Nicolae Ceausescu (2010)

As its title suggests, the film traces the life of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. It consists of largely unseen official archive footage, pieced together to cover the politician’s entire career. The film opens and closes with a sequence from the sham trial of Elena and Nicolae Ceaușescu on [date not specified]. This documentary follows the dictator’s rise, from the organization of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s funeral in 1965 to the events in Timișoara in [year not specified]. In between, it alternates among inaugurations; speeches at official events during successive congresses of the Romanian Communist Party; official visits by foreign heads of state to Romania and Ceaușescu’s visits abroad; and leisure activities such as swimming and hunting. The director’s approach is to present the raw footage and, with a few exceptions, treat the sound independently. The propagandistic nature of the footage is thus called into question through silences, music, and a few discreetly ironic observations. Two sequences, presented with their original sound, are particularly striking: one in which Ceaușescu delivers an impassioned speech denouncing the invasion of Czechoslovakia, backed by the unanimous support of the crowd; and another in which Comrade Constantin Pîrvulescu dares to speak at a Romanian Communist Party congress, publicly opposing Ceaușescu’s re-election amid the unanimous disapproval of the assembly.