Domestic

The Absurd Geometry of the Dinner Table

There is a moment in Adrian Sitaru’s 2012 film Domestic where the boundary between "pet" and "food" doesn't just blur—it collapses entirely, leaving the viewer to reckon with the sheer, uncomfortable comedy of our own hypocrisy. Sitaru, a cornerstone of the Romanian New Wave’s second generation, has always been interested in the claustrophobia of proximity. In his earlier work, he played with the unreliable nature of human perception, but in Domestic, he turns his lens toward the animal kingdom to expose the fragility of the human social contract.

It’s a film that feels less like a narrative and more like a series of increasingly frantic experiments in cohabitation.

The premise is deceptively simple: various households in Bucharest deal with the arrival, departure, or death of animals. Yet, Sitaru resists the urge to make this a sentimental ode to our furry companions. Instead, the animals act as catalysts for the characters' dormant anxieties.

Take Adrian Titieni, a veteran of the Romanian stage and screen who carries a weary, hangdog expression that seems etched by years of playing men who know they’re failing. Here, he navigates the bizarre logistics of a life shared with creatures that do not—cannot—reciprocate the projections of love we cast upon them. It’s not just that the animals are funny; it’s that they are indifferent.