THIS MOVIE IS NOT A COMEDY!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!
Why is this movie in the top 50 comedy movies on IMDB? Like I said in the title this movie is not a comedy it is a social satire or a tragedy but it sure isn't a comedy
shareMy impression is the international distributor marketed the film as a "black comedy", even though that marketing was completely different from what went on inside Romania. My further impression is that characterisation is now preserved forever in the international packaging and press, and IMDb is just following the lead the distributor provided. Viewing the international distribution as a "comedy" seems to be --if not the best or most accurate-- then at least one (semi-)legitimate way to approach the film.
The interview with the director on the DVD suggested that he didn't develop it as a "comedy", and didn't see that as the best categorization of the film. Yet he did see sufficient ambiguity to not object hardly at all when the international distributor proposed to market it that way.
As other posts here make clear, viewing the film as a "comedy" makes no sense to a Romanian viewer (or perhaps even to English viewers if it had better subtitles:-). And in 2013 classifying the film as a "comedy" is confusing and misleading to a whole lot of people, and bolixes up IMDb's system. Treating it as a "black comedy" may have gotten the film on a lot more theater screens in 2005 though, and thus made good marketing sense to the international distributor at the time.