The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu 2011

Cinemas possess a remarkable ability to influence perception, a power encapsulated in Andrei Ujică’s monumental work, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu. This film stands as a contemporary fresco portraying the life of Romania’s fallen dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, alongside his wife, Elena. A provocative and chilling endeavor, this project completes the filmmaker’s trilogy that began with the groundbreaking Videograms of a Revolution, co-created with noted German film essayist Harun Farocki.

Autobiography transcends conventional categorization, functioning most similarly to a Vertovian film-object. It assembles fragments of reality, meticulously editing together a repository of images that aim to reveal a deeper truth about Ceausescu’s reign. However, one must ponder: what is reality when its representations have been meticulously orchestrated into grand spectacles or quasi-musicals by an unhinged autocrat?

Ceausescu’s legendary megalomania and relentless self-aggrandizement are at the forefront of this historical narrative. Serving as Romania’s tyrannical president from 1965 to 1989, he cultivated an eccentric and infectious cult of personality surrounding himself. While his draconian austerity measures thrust the nation into widespread poverty and his prohibition of contraception led to rampant child abandonment and a surge of AIDS/HIV-infected orphans, Ceausescu was nevertheless celebrated on the global stage. His accolades included being knighted by the Queen of England, receiving visits from President Nixon during the Cold War, and garnering warm receptions from influential leaders like Charles de Gaulle, Mao Tse-tung, and notably the North Koreans, whose lavish ceremonies for him paralleled the grandiosity of the Beijing Olympics.

The film opens with the notorious television footage depicting the frail, cornered Ceausescu as he faces a mock trial just before he and his wife’s execution on Christmas Day. From this arresting beginning, the film delves into a breathtaking display of pomp and circumstance, chronicling the 25-year reign of a ruler whose grip on power was as spectacular as it was devastating. Notably, the film eschews voice-over commentary, instead relying on brilliant montage techniques and nuanced sound reconstruction to create a unique cinematic experience that resides in the creative space between Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma and Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera.

Taking four years to complete and drawing from over a thousand hours of both public and private archival footage, this captivating exploration unfolds as though it is pieced together from the introspective and nostalgic memories of Ceausescu himself. It invites the viewer to reflect on the manifold layers of truth and distortion that characterized a turbulent era in Romania’s history.