‘Întregalde’ Film Review: Bitter Romanian Comedy Strands Do-Gooders in a Moral Wilderness

The latest from Radu Muntean (“Tuesday, After Christmas”) fuses horror tropes to low-key social realism

Intregalde
Tudor Panduru/Grasshopper

A humanitarian aid distribution center, a mild chaos of activity and people, all of them gathering up bags of food and supplies, loading them into SUVs, and heading off down mountain roads. It’s a public-facing show of altruism that gets laid down flat in Romanian filmmaker Radu Muntean’s latest, “Întregalde,” an incisive, mirthlessly amusing satire about the social contours of charity.

The camera briefly settles on Bucharest aid workers Cristina (Carmen Lopazan) and Radu (a quick cameo from director Muntean), and just as quickly abandons them after a scene-setting conversation about grateful aid recipients and the moral quicksand of loving one’s own virtuousness.

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