‘Tales From the Golden Age” is the latest pleaser from the Romanian New Wave to reach New York. It’s a collection of six short black comedies set during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in the ’70s and ’80s. Each is by a different director, including Cristian Mungiu — best known for the abortion drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” — who wrote all the stories.
The collection is a mixed bag, although there are no clunkers. Funniest is the story of a teenage couple — they’re inspired by the movie “Bonnie and Clyde” — who pretend to be bureaucrats testing for polluted water just so they can steal returnable bottles from old people. Runner-up involves a cop who gets a live pig as a gift and must find a way to slaughter it in his apartment without his neighbors finding out.
The movie’s title comes from the Communists’ euphemism for Ceausescu’s cruel reign, which ended when he and his wife were executed on Christmas Day 1989.