A Study on the Movie Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

This paper attempts to analyze the film Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023) by Romanian director Radu Jude. The film consists of three chapters, which include three narratives and additional independent episode. This paper first provides an overview of director Radu Jude’s previous major works, and then analyzes the film Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. In detail, the three narratives included in the film are examined. The first narrative, which is about the life of the contemporary protagonist Angela, mainly focuses on Angela’s overwork while filming promotional videos for large corporations. Here, the author reveals that the interview videos Angela films about safety accidents at workplaces ultimately serve the interests of large corporations, not the workers. The second narrative is about Angela’s TikTok videos. Angela, who suffers from the misogyny rampant in contemporary Romanian society, transforms into a bald middle-aged man on her TikTok account. Now transformed into a man on her TikTok account, Angela spews misogynistic comments from the position of the perpetrator. In this way, she transforms from a victim in reality to a perpetrator in virtual space. This is almost the only way she can retaliate against the harm and insult she has suffered in reality. The third narrative is about the life of another Angela, the protagonist of the 1981 film Angela Goes on. Angela’s life in 1981 is not very different from that of contemporary Angela, and through these two lives, director Radu Jude reveals that the problems of contemporary Romanian society intersect with the reality of the communist past. The final narrative of the film is about the scene where the management of Angela’s company is filming an interview with the candidate she has finally chosen. Having chosen the interviewee, Angela and the film crew must produce a promotional video on the topic of “the importance of safety.” They chose Ovidiu, the son of Angela, the protagonist of the 1981 film, to be the main character in this promotional video. Here, I will show how the filming of the promotional video reveals how dependent the lives of Romanian workers are on capital and how it is practically impossible to escape from it.