Angela spends her days and nights traveling around the city of Bucharest, looking for potential candidates to make appearance in a “safe at work” video commissioned by a multinational company. Whenever the overworked Angela hits a wall of reality, Bobita, an “alter ego” on TikTok, becomes her outlet for stress with her vicious taunts and hateful comments. As he proved with his previous film, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021), Radu Jude is a master of satire, and through a dizzy array of images and unfiltered dialogues, he delivers a sobering insight and powerful critique about the absurdities of our society. In the second half of the film, when the shooting of the promotional video finally begins, we witness how the voice of the worker in a wheelchair gradually loses power as the client’s various demands are met, and the truth finally disappears into a few lines of scribbled subtitles. We realize that the end of the world is not a catastrophe that comes out of nowhere, but something that settles in us and slowly robs us of the power to change. And sadly, the end may already be underway. (Karen PARK)