Malmkrog

2020 Directed by Cristi Puiu

A period piece set in 1900 focusing on the concepts of economic materialism, Tolstoian abstract moralism, and Nietzschean hubris.

Agathe Bosch Ugo Broussot Marina Palii Frédéric Schulz-Richard Diana Sakalauskaité István Téglás Edith Alibec Vitalie Bichir Sorin Dobrin Bogdan Geambașu Simona Ghita Levente Nemes Judith State Zoe Puiu

Alternative Titles

매너 하우스, The Manor House, La conac

drama history

200 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Tino Hahn ★★★★½ 7

Produzent: „Hallo, Herr Bergman! Können Sie für uns einen 400 Minuten langen Film drehen, nach dem man sich so fühlt, als ob man abendländische Philosophie sein Vater gefickt hat?“
Bergman: „Theoretisch sehr gerne, praktisch bin ich aber leider tot. Aber fragen Sie doch mal Cristi Puiu, der schafft es auch in 200 Minuten und packt auch noch eine komplette Abhandlung aller Evangelien drauf.“
Produzent: „Geilomat! Mach ich - und entschuldigen Sie die Störung!“
Bergman [legt kopfschüttelnd auf und obwohl wir nichts sehen, spüren wir das Kopfschütteln]
Produzent: „Herr Puiu, können Sie...“
Puiu: „Ja.“
Review by Lucy ★★ 3

NYFF 2020: film #5
“if you know the answer, why ask the question?”
i really tried. this is wildly uninteresting, all philosophical filler with nothing tangible to grab onto. there’s a glimpse of possibility just after the mid point that held my attention, but was immediately discarded in place of more cold conversations that seem to run in circles. at least it looks nice!
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 4

Malmkrog opens with a snowy landscape covered in shades of white. Then it moves indoors and becomes a three hour conversation between a bunch of elites in late 19th Century Europe. These few characters, among them a politician, a countess, and a general's wife, embark on an adventure that centres on long philosophical debates. Their most prominent topics are war, religion, and morality, but they are go beyond them too. They are charismatic speakers and command attention, though the conversation becomes more dense as each scene passes. There is no real ending, just a culmination of exhaustion that leaves you knowing this discussion could never end.
Malmkrog is a classic example of slow cinema, which seems so prevelant in the…
Review by fran hoepfner ★★★ 3

like an hour into the film, a character suggests they put the conversation (about war, morality, violence, politics, national identity, God, the Antichrist, culture, etc.) to bed because they'll never get through it, and the group almost unanimously decides to keep talking, which they do. there's a necessary, borderline abstract (?) dramatic trolling midway through, otherwise they just talk and talk. I sort of appreciate what it's getting at - the irony of its rhetorical exercise, these fake-smart idiots with no connection to the real world playing devil's advocate for a whole day - but 200 minutes of people being like "I wonder if there will be a World War One?" does get (purposefully) wearisome. obviously, Malmkrog is about grad school!
Review by Ayeen Forootan ★★★★½

This is not just one of the best films of the year but already one of the best of the new decade. A pure work on rhetorics of mise-en-scène, and rhetorical mise-en-scène.
Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½ 1

I'm not sure if anyone else made this comparision before, but the film Malmkrog made me think throughout was Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, although the violence here is mostly verbal as fitting for a film about barbarism with great manners (as opposed to QT proudly savagery). Six people having a philosophical argument and treading intellectual insults as the dark underbelly of enlightment reveals a decadent aristocracy moving towards horror. Formally very accomplished, like all previous Puiu features it is a big low key epic done in a very specific style that he pushes to the limit. Very easy to get lost here if one decides to engage fully with discussons, but it seems to me far more rewarding to accept…
Review by Owen ★★½ 2

what a lovely nap
Review by Jack ★★ 2

3½ hours of monotonous, philosophical dialogues musing on religion, war, history and other wearisome concepts. I’m sure a ton of intellectual cinephiles will eat this up, but my moronic self was left cold by this visually interesting but redundant artistic experiment.
Review by mmcc ★★★★

A film that is, perhaps, almost the exact mode of analysis Domenico Losurdo did not pursue when unpacking the question of "What is liberalism?" in his 2006 book 'Controstoria del Liberalismo' (English: 'Liberalism: A Counter-History'). Through his writing the philosopher attempted to come to an answer through the provision of a history—one which specified what "the liberal movement and liberal society[... were] in their concrete reality" and investigated what this reality is by accounting for "the conceptual developments... [and] political and social relations it found expression in, as well as the more or less contradictory link that was established between these two dimensions of social reality". The Italian was, however, clear—he did not intend to engage with "liberal thought in…
Review by Matt Neglia ★★½ 3

MALMKROG is nearly three and a half hours of non-stop intellectual dialogue from aristocratic characters dissecting a wide array of topics such as religion, history & good and evil. Staged like a play, it’s a dense & exhausting experience that says so much but does very little. I’m tired.
Review by Stevie ★½ 3

A group of wealthy Franco-Russians get together in a quaint country estate, share their ideologies, and everyone has a differing viewpoint on morality. There you go I saved you 3 hours and 20 minutes. It never goes anywhere that’s all it is. I would say this would work better as a stage play but these conversations are not nearly compelling enough for that either. There’s no character depth or engaging drama beyond nonstop rambling, and even when it alludes to some kind of “fun” (for whatever that means here) it completely fumbles the ball and avoids purpose, opting instead to never give the audience any rewards. It’s not deep, it’s not intellectual, it’s just..... long and boring.
Tied with The Painted Bird for most desperate arthouse wannabe of the year.
Review by Nasim Ss🪄 2

Malmkrog is one of the best films of the year. Puiu's blocking and staging is different in each chapter. In one chapter Puiu structures scenes with moving camera/moving bodies, in another one static shot with seated characters arguing about many concepts that makes it hard to follow. Malmkrog is not a period drama, time loses its logic as the film goes on. These are talkative people that don't know anything and talk as they want to find their redemption through words.

Recent reviews

Review by Dannzel Escobar ★★★½

7
What arose as most notable to me watching this three and a half hour intellectual trial, is the possible meta aspect that is the shared place audiences might find themselves in as the characters Puiu slyly mocks throughout the entire duration. The length spent dedicated in this company of incessant, self-indulgent, and ultimately trivial rumination by nugatory social and class elites, who regularly defy in direct their privileged words, is in itself a bubble of economic disparity. The act of watching is no humble activity. One that I myself could actively feel thrashing against my immediate environment. Very much a film for festivals, which makes one question whether works like these either transgress the structures that prop them up,…
Review by Raul Zambrano ★★★½

Towards the end of the 19th Century, five well-educated Russian aristocrats gather in a luxurious yet secluded mansion to chat about war, religion and civilization, among others, without ever finding common ground. Diverging ethical perspectives, so prevalent nowadays, dominate throughout -while also witnessing Russian intellectuals of that time discuss their almost native Europeanness in French while the service tries its best to be visibly invisible to their masters. Divided into six chapters, the film follows these always polite conversations closely, thus expecting the same from us. Indeed, most of the discussions are indeed relevant to our present but the film's length adds an extra hurdle. The cinematography is great, especially in the first chapter supported by great location, wonderful historical ambiance and very refined catering. The original Solovyov book has only three chapters and a slightly different cast of characters.
Review by phoebe 💫 ★★★½

Wow! What a long year of recorded lectures, Russian novels, and oblique philosophical texts! I’m so glad I’m done! *Proceeds to watch a 3.5 hour movie about Transylvanian aristocrats debating philosophy, aka a dry, not fun version of the Christmas dinner scene from Fanny and Alexander*
Review by Torajima ★★★

A formal period piece soundtracked by Eurocentric conversations on good and evil, war, and religion. The "act" of being civilized.
Dry, certainly. Some segments "reverts to scholasticism" but I appreciate the layered quality of the wider shots. The background noise often being more interesting than the face of the film.
On MUBI.
Review by InReviewOnline

Full Review at In Review Online
"'For a talking cinema': that’s the title that a young Maurice Scherer, not yet christened Eric Rohmer, selected for his signature polemic, and the apparent aim of the current Cristi Puiu project. The Romanian New Wave stalwart certainly wouldn’t object to the implied comparison. Puiu dedicated his 2013 documentary/experimental theatre hybrid Three Interpretation Exercises to the long-winded elder brother of the original Nouvelle Vague, and the subsequent trajectory of Puiu’s career suggests a deepening commitment to the Rohmerian concept of the “spoken film.” Indeed, his newest film, Malmkrog, much like his last one, Sieranevada, largely confines itself to a single interior location and tracks — via re-framings and re-positionings both visual and verbal — the salvos and volleys that accompany tense conversation in tight quarters." ✏️ Evan Morgan
Review by ACT2002 ★★★★

From the looks I thought this would be the most boring film ever made ( 3 1/2 hour movie about Russian aristocrats discussing philosophy in one room ) but i actually quite enjoyed myself and was engaged almost the whole time. This is a perfect example not to judge a book by its cover in my case.
The devil is in the details in this film. The contrast between the foreground (the aristocrats) and the background (the servants) tells us exactly what the directors view on aristocrats, a group of walking contradictions who are not connected to the real world. They’re smart idiots. They can talk a lot but their brains are so limited in their capabilities and think of…
Review by Vladimir Kremenovic ★★★★½

If everyone plays the devils advocate in a debate, the only person that wins is the Devil.
Review by Ben Kinney Harris ★★★★½

“Evil does not exist, it arises as a result of the false opinion that it does exist and we act accordingly.”
Absolutely stunning. Debates on the morality of war, the nature of good and evil, civilization, theology, Europeanisn, and classist interpretations of ‘politeness’ played out in a Transylvanian country retreat under the impending weight of the Twentieth Century history about to crash down upon European aristocracy. Puiu’s watchful eye hovers and cuts through the space like a silent observer, like an additional guest at the dinner party, perhaps seated in one of the extra chairs present in each scene. It’s an invitation to be present in these heady, fast-paced, and otherwise unapproachable topics that we so rarely engage with because…
Review by Cinema da Arte ★★★★½

Uma experiência incrível proporcionada por Puiu aqui. Discussões super instigantes entre cinco personagens sobre praticamente tudo; religião, etnias, crenças, éticas, e tudo isso feito com o maior requinte visual desse último ano. Visual espectacular. Um filmaço!
Review by Blake Griggs ★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Dead air, wisped out at the fin de siècle. Lord knows I struggled with this, so thank God it is at least one long formal joke of the debaters’ blinkered absorption in their own cultural superiority and abstract moral jousting. Watch as they lucubrate Christ and the nature of evil, war atrocities over brandy, the importance of politesse as a moral compunction of European civilization while ignoring their ever attendant retainers, and sympathize with the English in the Boer War. Trouble is if you are not fluent in French you may end up reading subtitles more than you take in the scenes, and the logorrhea wears on one’s want to indulge the formal and emotional precision in the direction and…
Review by Jesse ★★★★

Slow but enthralling.
Review by Joe Harrison ★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

I hate discourse.
That hate is mainly reserved for the nebulous exclusively online concept of "The Discourse" that leads to every slightly noteworthy thing that pops up in the modern zeitgeist having some contrived intellectual debate attached to it, no matter how fucking stupid or worthy of thought and discussion it is. Its proof of an already known critique of upper-to-middle class psuedo-intellectuals (the kind of people who form their whole online identity around debating right-wingers on Twitch, basically) that they take every opportunity to debate the cultural and political issues of the day to prove their intellectual supremacy and understanding, but do everything they can to avoid actually confronting those issues personally, or using any of their class privilege…