Scarred Hearts

It is stupefying that a mere year after 2015's masterpiece "Aferim!", Jude comes up with an even greater (and even more depressing) accomplishment. "Scarred Hearts" is a work of unbelievable realism, poetry and depth; the characters and relationships are beautifully drawn regardless, but they also play out brilliant symbolic interplays of life and death, psychosocial analyses and light touches of historical commentary. The cinematography is almost distractingly ingenious.