Graduation review: thesis statement. Bacalaureat by Cristian Mungiu

Graduation 2016
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Graduation 2016
“Graduation” is a Romanian- language contemporary movie written and produced by Christian Mungiu. The characters include a middle aged father, Rumeo, his wife Magda, 18 years old daughter, Eliza and Eliza’s teacher, Sandra. The movie reflects a moral decay in the society and “an ongoing concern with the nation’s fate since the collapse of Soviet Communism and the Ceausescu regime in 1982” (Chesire, 2017, n.p). Just like a novelist, film artists also have forms and techniques of expressing their thoughts in films. A better grasp of cinematography is therefore a prerequisite for good filmmaking. This is demonstrated in Cristian Mungui’s “Graduation” which employs key elements of cinematographic language in its contextual construction. This review therefore explores semiotic aspect of “Graduation” with a particular focus on the cultural underpinnings of the film.
The Summary of Graduation 2016
The reality of the rotten system is seen in the life of one, Romeo who is the film’s protagonist. Rumeo, a Doctor by profession is facing a string of midlife challenges. He has frosty relationship with his wife Magda who is romantically detached from him. His mistress, Sandra is also exerting pressure on him to leave his wife for her at a time her beautiful and brainy daughter, Eliza is set to sit for her graduation exams (Brooke, 2018). Romeo’s daughter needs to pass her final graduation exam in order to claim scholarship to Cambridge. Eliza is attacked next to their school by a stranger who unsuccessfully attempted to rape her. The assault left Eliza emotionally shaken and her wrist sprained forcing her to write her exams wearing a cast. Romeo is worried that the turn of events could reduce Eliza’s chances of passing her exams and subsequently lose the opportunity to claim her scholarship to Cambridge. For a man with integrity unmatched by the society that surrounds him, Romeo finally join the rotten system in pursuit of socio-economic good. He comes into contact with the state bureaucrats who know the system to help him fix his daughter’s grade in order to claim Cambridge scholarship (Chesire, 2017). Mungiu uses enticing narrative threads throughout the film to emphasize the surviving theme that poor decisions have lifelong repercussions.
Cinematography and Cinematic Grammar
Filmmakers use various techniques that go beyond the shot and camera positioning when creating contents. This brings to the fore an important aspect of cinematography known as cinematic grammar. Ideally this is the language by which movie directors communicate their thoughts to the viewers. The thoughts are actually conveyed to the viewers by characters playing specific roles. Narrative interpretation of cinematic grammar is therefore necessary in order to understand the cultural underpinnings of the film (Pop, 2010, Popan, 2014). The cultural underpinning of Graduation is a rotten system where corruption and all elements of moral decay are the norms. It is so much culturally entrenched that it becomes part and parcel of life.
The basic elements of cinematographic language include, an...