The Official Word: The idiocies of daily life in a dictatorship are explored in this comic, ironic look at Romania under the Ceaucescu regime.

Appropriately, and setting the tone, the film begins with The Legend of the Official Visit in which a village of ordinary rural folk are charged with ever more ridiculous and obsequious tasks in preparation for a state visit which may or may not happen. Other tales present a rudimentary approach to media manipulation, doctoring the image of the leader to make him look taller; the lengths to which people would go to relieve the monotony of the mid-80s Romanian diet; and the impact of the growth of free enterprise on individual lives. Added together, this unusually successful portmanteau film is both knowledgeable and knowing, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. It's a stylistic treat too, with intertitles designed to reflect the vernacular of the period, helping to catch the mood of the time.

Our Verdict: Wonderfully constructed and subtly linked all the stories play out with efficiency and style. It’s a mark of how good the films are that you hesitate in engaging with each new ‘episode’ pondering about the events of the previous story. The opening film is superb and probably the highlight although none of the subsequent ones are a let-down in anyway.

There is a dark humour throughout which comes out at inappropriate moments making it all the more entertaining. Obviously there is a part of you that wonders what happens to the characters once the film ends (firing squads would probably be setting their sights even before the credits roll) but you never get a sense of melancholy.

It’s a great touch that the films remain anonymous in as much as we never know which director made which film. Mungiu’s motifs may well give his film away but it would be a brave (and unnecessarily picky) critic who would track down the filmmakers and their respective films.

The tone between stories varies but not to the extent that it distracts or even deviates from you chain of thought. You become engrossed and enchanted by the seemingly mundane lives of the characters all of whom have warmth to them which makes you root for a positive outcome.

A festival highlight and one worth checking out when it is on general release as well.

Rating: ****