I’ve just spent 2 weeks watching Romanian films and, since nobody else seems to have commented on them, I’ll do the unthinkable.
To begin with, most of them are unbearably long (2 hours+). I know that Gone with the wind is 6 hours+ (I’ve seen it at least 20 times), but that one is beautiful and inspiring even in its gory moments. It beats me why Romanian (and Italian, and French) directors never care about the feelings of their public. Everything is bound to be heavy, gloomy, and harsh – like I imagine a Siberian winter to be (although I hear that the Russian cold actually pumps you up with energy; which never happens with these films: they leave flat like a walked on old carpet).
I feel like I’ve earned the right to piss on their parade, since they took me tru hell and back, they’ve tried and tested every bit of patience and rationalization I am capable of. And Yes! To be honest, I rose in my own eyes quite a bit – I didn’t really think I had it in me. If anything, I bore easily, I’m very demanding and lack the understanding for human flaws like being uninteresting, unreasonable or plain stupid.
Don’t take my word for it. See them yourself: I dare you!
Of what I’ve seen so far, amazingly, I actually liked Morometii (1988), directed by Stere Gulea
Didn’t read the book (don’t tell on me, plz!) for the simple reason that it was forced on me; and the shit they commented about the book convinced me to never ever get close. Years later I loved Delirul (delirium), but my affair with Marin Preda stoped there. It wasn’t love.
Gulea must’ve chosen to keep it black &white – and it helped create authenticity, and depth. If you contrast it to Amintiri din copilarie (Childhood memories; see below), the poverty, the tension, and emotionally bleak atmosphere of the Moromete family really gets to you.
It could be my attention spam shifting for the second hour, but I saw how the composition and the planning of the scenes disintegrate along with the story plot. The first half has an inner consistency, an inner beauty - the carefully prepared composition, the candle light faces or the contre-jour, slightly overexposed and soft look are very impressive. It looks beautiful while it feels gloomy, and that makes you an accomplice. And the camera always looks up to Moromete – he feels like a giant in his made-up world, he looks like one to us. Then it all falls apart – and the focus moves from form to content.
The silent beauty before the storm. Weelll, at least it shows it could’ve been beautiful, despite lack of money or illness.
If you forgotten the story, his idealism keeps him from emotionally connecting to his family – he takes care of business, he cares for them financially, but fails to recognize them as human beings. They’re as real to him as the politicians he comments on – and make no mistake! This is a very smart man. Many fathers make the same mistake, with predictably the same results.
Interestingly enough, as if giving Moromete a chance to redeem himself as a parent, his youngest son resembles him – a dreamer and a thinker, begging for a chance to embrace his true nature. Again, he fails to see what’s important, what is already lost and what can still be saved. The dreamer in me hopes that the second part of the book restores hope – for the first ends in failure.
As far as I can tell (never having read the book) the mistake this man makes is not choosing his own destiny, pretending to be something he’s not. He projects his own flaws onto others, oblivious to the intrinsic imperfection of human nature and reality he demands perfection. He basically refuses to face life while pretending to know everything about it, except his own refusal. And, the worst of all (in my eyes), he doesn’t know when to stop the charade and acknowledge his loses. A blind mule.
While that may be a fine way to live your own life, it’s a heavy burden for children left without the care, love, attention or guidance of a parent, but with the blame of needing them. That’s his “crime”, and he never accepts to suffer for it. His own pain – had he accepted it and expressed it – could’ve set him free.
A happier account of the family life in a simple village in the Amintiri din copilarie (1964) (Childhood memories) film, directed by Elisabeta Bostan.
This one is nice, and let’s leave it to that. It follows Ion Creanga’s story thoroughly – plot, casting, scenery. Down to the darn Hoopoe bird, the herbs field, the cherries, the poor house the kids broke to pieces
Again, the film colors are used by the director – soft, cheerful colors for the memories, black & white for the old Creanga himself, writing down his stories and guiding the viewer along the path of memories.
Stefan Ciubotarasu was perfectly chosen for the part and manages quite skillfully to slowly infuse you with the bleakness, the loneliness, the silent suffering in which the writer spent his years. His voice brings you back to his ‘present’ at the end of the film, and the sudden misery overwhelms you. How strange to cry at the end of a beautiful, joyful and fun film – don’t you think? A talented murder – this Elisabeta Bostan: she hits you hard when you least expect it, with a heavy, dark dose of reality.
As for Ion Creanga himself, we’re not finished with him. His untranslatable Childhood Memories aside, another director – Ion Popescu-Gopo and his De-as fi Harap Alb (1965) – alerted me to the fact that the man was pure genius. Even if you think you know it, go back and read the story of Harap Alb – (The White Moor) once more! I promise you you’ll be surprised. The level of significance goes way beyond word meaning and deep beneath the surface of a children’ story.
Marin Preda’s other ecranisation Cel mai iubit dintre pamînteni (1993) (the most beloved among people), dir. Serban Marinescu is as smart, and ironic, and deep as I didn’t expect it to be.
I almost withdrew from the 2 hours race when faced with the unnecessary and unreasonably direct sex scene in the first 5 minutes of the film. I happen to find necessity very important – it helps make fiction plausible and creates inner consistency for character and plot alike. I love porn, but there’s a time and place for everything.
If you’re like a friend of mine, who watched a whole film because someone had promised him a hard-core sex scene between a dinosaur and a human, you’ll be happy to know you won’t be disappointed (like my friend was ;-). Two respectable cinema stars, Stefan Iordache and Mircea Albulescu make a homosexual rape look good on camera, and quite believable.
Of course there’s more. There is human absurdity, and life irony, and silent suffering, and clever dialogue, and politics, and philosophy, and a human being disintegrating right before your eyes. And there is the frustration – of being different, empty handed, naked, powerless.
He is also a dreamer, a philosopher, of course he’s also unable to deal with common reality, but this one adjusts to it, incorporates the lessons he’s given. And in doing so, loses his dreams, his dignity, his values and principles, that whole inner context that defined him and his destiny. Well, he loses just about everything. And you know, watching his reality, that hanging on to anything too tightly would’ve been just as pointless. You learn something too, I guess.
There is some trace of Russian behaviorism (you're welcome to agree with it, but be advised that I don't) – claiming that if you treat a man like a murderer, he will become one. I don’t know what happened cos I didn’t see it to the end. One more hour to go – and I saved it for some other time.
I watched Poseidon (2006) instead
A fast food kind of film. And I enjoyed every bit of the lack of: plot, psychological depth, human connection to the characters or empathy. But tt was fast and it kept me up and alert. Yeah, sure – because I’m terrified of the water and I died several times watching it – I was one of the unknown many floating around in the back, due to their lack of a heroic attitude.
One thing bothers me, however: why the hell did they turn the boat to meet the wave sidewise? Aren’t you better off breaking the wave – diving right into it?