The world's attention was focused on two countries in December, 1989: Panama (invaded by the US) and Romania, where a popular revolution overthrew longtime despot Nicolae Ceausescu. But what happened on the ground? Harun Farocki's "Videogramme einer Revolution" ("Videograms of a Revolution" in English) tries to make sense of the events from the 20th to the 25th of December. Part of what it shows is how the Romanians themselves often didn't know the full extent of what was happening, especially since Ceausescu still had control of his country's media. It makes one wonder how things would play out if this happened (or had happened) in a western bloc country.
The thing to understand about Ceausescu was that unlike the rest of the leaders in the Soviet bloc - who were typical puppets of the USSR - he ran Romania like his own personal piggy bank and forced women to have large numbers of children. No surprise that the people eventually brought him down and executed him. We can debate how things turned out in Romania afterwards, but there's no denying that Ceausescu was a real whack-job. Check out the documentary if you can find it.
Note: The first S in his name had a cedilla, but IMDb no longer allows that letter for some reason.
The thing to understand about Ceausescu was that unlike the rest of the leaders in the Soviet bloc - who were typical puppets of the USSR - he ran Romania like his own personal piggy bank and forced women to have large numbers of children. No surprise that the people eventually brought him down and executed him. We can debate how things turned out in Romania afterwards, but there's no denying that Ceausescu was a real whack-job. Check out the documentary if you can find it.
Note: The first S in his name had a cedilla, but IMDb no longer allows that letter for some reason.