The Diary of a Chambermaid

Like Mirbeau before him, Jude dissects bourgeois rot through formal mischief and corrosive irony, though he does so for an age of migrant precarity, performative liberalism, and atomized labor. The methods differ, as does the medium, but the instinct remains the same: to reveal a society’s moral decay not through grand revelations, but through the banal rituals by which people justify themselves every day.

The influence of Brecht and Godard is plain to see, but any distancing effect is counterbalanced by Radu Jude’s earthy black humor and especially by the main character, who gives the film its strong emotional core.

At a mere 94 minutes in length, its meandering, meta-textual appearance might seem like a misfire at first, but it disguises what might be Jude’s most slyly character-focused work, culminating in a completely unexpected emotional gut punch.

Everything is connected in a movie that never ditches its razor-sharp view of class exploitation.

While not quite at his satirical best, The Diary of a Chambermaid has a more muted tone that helps foreground the maturity of Jude’s form and continues the quieter tension he began exploring after the balls-to-the-wall “Dracula.” Not a story of unrest, but rather one of rest against the friction of your surroundings.

The Diary Of A Chambermaid’s outward prettiness merely emphasises the melancholy and quiet anger at its core, as Jude reveals his disdain for how rich families (and countries) treat poor immigrant labour. Marguerite and Pierre are never outwardly cruel, but their repeated microaggressions are a comparable torture.