When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism

A director asks his actress whether she’s comfortable doing a nude scene. As long as its justified, she says. Don’t worry, he replies. So begins Corneliu Porumboiu’s deliciously witty new film. Shot inside non-descript hotel lobbies, restaurants and apartments – places that lie on the periphery of a movie set, When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism follows Paul, a director of some renown, who is suffering from an imaginary medical condition and a real crisis of faith. He has two weeks left to shoot his latest opus; but is for some unknown reason plagued with doubt. Perhaps it has to do with his actress, with whom he’s having an affair, or the constraints of Chinese cuisine, or Michelangelo Antonioni, or something in between.