Review of The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010) by Walter M — 06 Apr 2015

Exclusively using archival footage, "The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu" details the reign of the Romanian leader from his rise to power in 1964 to his calamitous fall in 1989. The highlights include a supremely ballsy repudiation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Nixon's visit in 1969 which proved the old adage that only Nixon could go to Romania.(There's a Futurama joke in there, I suspect.) All of which along with Romania's warm relations with Communist China paved the way for its independence in the Eastern Bloc.

The irony is that per the film's title this is probably the rosy way that Ceausescu saw things when in fact the reality was much, much worse, as he was in fact quite a repressive leader. Admittedly, accusing him of genocide was probably taking it a little too far.

At the same time, that same irony almost escaped me, until I did a little online research.(Thanks, Wikipedia!) And considering that the average attention span is 5 to 10 minutes, I wouldn't probably be the only one. That's not to mention those people still living in Romania who currently think back on Ceausescu's reign as being the good old days. And then there is the small matter of aesthetics wherein the documentary's lackadaisical editing makes it almost seem like it would best be suited to be streamed on the side of a wall in a museum.