{"id":18519,"date":"2026-04-02T21:00:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=18519"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:12:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T01:12:37","slug":"the-second-game-2014-corneliu-porumboiu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/18519","title":{"rendered":"The Second Game (2014, Corneliu Porumboiu)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The one where the director watches a scoreless soccer game on TV with his dad, a soccer game his dad coached, and they discuss the game, players, era, and political context&#8230; difference in rules and tactics between then (1988) and now, the political implications of this army-vs-police game and the risks of being its referee.  It&#8217;s movie-as-audio-commentary, and I was on board for the first half, until it runs out of interest and energy, just like most audio commenataries.  Dad complains about the picture quality (&#8220;it&#8217;s from the stone age&#8221;) and he also takes a phone call which causes digital interference in the sound recording, so both layers have their tech problems.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image26\/secgame1.jpeg\"><\/p>\n<p>Jordan Cronk in Cinema Scope: &#8220;It quickly becomes clear that the least interesting thing occurring on screen is the game. Rather, interpersonal rivalries, intimidation tactics, convenient editing, and extracurricular ploys provide the drama in a parallel conflict taking place just beneath the surface.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dad: &#8220;You couldn&#8217;t make a film out of this.  Nobody would watch it, it&#8217;s all in the past.  Football is like everything else, like cinema and art: they all have their moment, you consume it, and it&#8217;s over.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Porumboiu, arguing that the game is like his films:<\/em><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image26\/secgame2.jpeg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The one where the director watches a scoreless soccer game on TV with his dad, a soccer game his dad coached, and they discuss the game, players, era, and political context&#8230; difference in rules and tactics between then (1988) and now, the political implications of this army-vs-police game and the risks of being its referee. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1049,1696,87,1276,52],"class_list":["post-18519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-2010s","tag-corneliu-porumboiu","tag-romania","tag-soccer","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18558,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18519\/revisions\/18558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}