2013 Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema | Media Report

2013 MAKING WAVES: New Romanian Cinema

MEDIA REPORT NEW YORK AND U.S. NATIONAL MEDIA (February 2014)

Festival Publicist: JMP Verdant Communications Contact: Julia Pacetti, julia@jmpverdant.com

http://nyti.ms/1flWyqU MOVIES

Hindered by Geography but Surmounting It Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Need for Broader Outreach

By A. O. SCOTT

JAN. 31, 2014

The Times’s chief film critics, A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, offer suggestions for renewing the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

It is easy enough to quibble with — or to celebrate — the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s programming choices and publicity efforts. There are too many wheezy national-cinema omnibuses and too few genuinely adventurous offerings. But then again, there are annual treasures like Film Comment Selects, the Making Waves series on Romanian cinema and the venerable and vigorous New York Film Festival, the seed from which the Film Society sprouted. Any organization that has survived for so long with such broad and lofty ambitions will be a mixed bag. But the society faces challenges that lie beyond the fluctuations of its event calendar. Its deeper, structural problems result in large measure from geography, architecture and the changing demographics of New York’s film culture.

The Film Society is literally, physically alienated from its audience. Its largest screening space, the Walter Reade Theater — one of the finest moviewatching rooms the city, thanks to a high ceiling, steeply banked seats, a large screen and superb projection — is perched above the north side of 65th street, far from Lincoln Center’s other attractions, like an unwelcome in-law shoved into the attic. The Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, with its street-level box office and lively cafe, is a bit more welcoming, even if its three screening rooms are on the small side. But both sites feel like nooks and crannies, marginal to the grand cultural endeavor that defines this venerable mass of travertine, glass and highcultural aspiration.

The surrounding neighborhood has also slipped away from the Film Society.

The Upper West Side was once dotted with revival houses and art cinemas.

Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, just across Broadway from Lincoln Center, is a proud remnant of that era of cinephilia. And the area was also once an outpost of Manhattan’s middle-class bohemia, where herds of would-be intellectuals grazed in used-book stores and argued in coffee shops. It was not quite Greenwich Village, but it was a short subway ride away.

Now the blocks between Central Park and the Hudson are given over mostly to stockbrokers and grandmothers, and the city’s center of cultural gravity has swung south and east, to Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and bubbling pockets of Queens. In those areas, where the Film Society should be seeking out its public, it finds competition: from established nonprofit institutions like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Film Forum and the Museum of the Moving Image, which are surrounded by the bars, boutiques and brunch spots that can extend a trip to the movies into a day- or evening-long adventure; from new theaters and pop-up programs like Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg and the Gowanus-based Rooftop Films; and from the Tribeca Film Festival and its satellites.

The success of all these enterprises is evidence that people — including young people — will still leave the house to see a film. But it also points to an obstacle that has always distinguished the Film Society from its Lincoln Center kin, which is that filmgoers have lots of other places to go. The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater and the New York Philharmonic are unique institutions, able to attract both the patronage of the donor class and the loyalty of fans. The Film Society enjoys no such monopoly, and apart from the New York Film Festival — a glittery two-week party for philanthropists and rank-and-file movie buffs alike — it seems perpetually unsure of how to cultivate a passionate constituency.

There is no easy solution. The Film Society is unlikely to uproot itself from its recently expanded home on 65th Street. But it needs — as a matter of programming, marketing, media strategy and philosophy — to venture beyond the walls of the castle. It is interesting to note that most of the institutions that dominate Lincoln Center invoke the city in their names. The Film Society provides an address, which is not quite enough. The Met and the Philharmonic belong to New York, and are confident that it will come to them. The Film Society needs to move in the other direction, and rediscover a public that it has too long ignored and taken for granted.

11/29/2013

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/11/27/movies/romaniancinema.html?ref=movies&_r=1&

This featurette by the Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, from 2004, is a sharp-edged romantic novella set against a backdrop of degradation. The protagonist, Liviu (Dragos Bucur), an unemployed twenty-four-year-old man who lives with his unemployed parents, fences stolen goods, dissipates his days with other idle youths, and sleeps with his best friend’s girlfriend, Mariana (Luiza Cocora), a dental technician who loves him and finds herself pregnant. Porumboiu sets up the drama with archival clips of an anti-abortion speech by the Communist-era dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and related memories from his childhood. In a pair of brisk and caustic shots, he reveals a history of covert hostility and resistance to that regime—and finds enduring bitterness from the country’s lost decades still corroding morale. With epigrammatic precision and incisively analytical images, voice-overs and dream sequences, grim comedy and implicit violence, the filmmaker sketches a bright-eyed and self-conscious slide into despair: the capable and energetic Liviu takes his future into his own hands with a brilliantly ironic, quietly tragic decisiveness. In Romanian.—R.B. (Film Society of Lincoln Center; Nov. 30.)

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Walter Reade Theatre, Lincoln Center (212-875-5610)—Films from Romania.

Nov. 30 at 6: Short films by Corneliu Porumboiu, including “LIVIU’S

DREAM.” • Dec. 1 at 7:45: “Three Exercises of Interpretation” (2013, Cristi

Puiu). • Dec. 2 at 1: “12:08 East of Bucharest” (2006, Porumboiu). • Dec. 2 at 3: “Police, Adjective” (2009, Porumboiu). • Dec. 3 at 6: “When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism” (2013, Porumboiu). http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/revivals/2013/12/02/131202gomo_GOAT_movies

Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013 Time Out says Tue Nov 19 2013 The Film Society's annual program of new films from Romania includes some oldies-but-goodies (every film by Corneliu Porumboiu, director of the recent When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism) and some new, notable titles, like Calin Peter Netzer's much-lauded Child's Poseand Cristi Puiu's Three Exercises of Interpretation. It runs Fri 29–Tue 3. Visit filmlinc.com for more information. http://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/making-waves-new-romanian-cinema-2013

Spring 2014

Beyond New Romanian Cinema: Old Traps and New Beginnings

by Monica Filimon

Recently, at a multiplex cinema in a Bucharest mall, director Corneliu Porumboiu was about to purchase a ticket when the box-­‐office seller warned him, “You do realize this is a Romanian movie, don’t you?” New Waves are not necessarily popular with the very audiences whose inner lives and aspirations they represent, and the New Romanian Cinema is no stranger to such a fate. In December 2013, however, the eighth edition of Making Waves, the Romanian Film Festival in New York, attracted enthusiastic audiences, eager to watch, of all things, Romanian movies. Showcasing the surprising vitality of a cinema largely unknown a decade ago, this year’s lineup also revealed a departure from the uncompromising realism of the New Romanian Cinema (NRC), once at the core of the manifestation. The festival blended pre-­‐1989 genre and propaganda films with today’s grand, spectacular narratives, and the gradually dwindling complexity of the latest NRC films. More importantly, however, the event signaled the turn towards a modernist investigation of the real, in films by Cristi Puiu and Porumboiu, and postmodern experimentation with form and plot, in short films by upcoming directors. In the absence of a coherent national strategy to support filmmaking, but with unmitigated

international support, Romanian cinema is slowly, but surely, moving into new territory.

Making Waves was launched in 2006, at the initiative of Corina Suteu, at the time the director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, and with the help of critic Mihai Chirilov as artistic director. The festival grew rapidly as Romanian filmmakers gained international acclaim, so, starting with 2010, it has been co-­‐ presented with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and in 2013, also with the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. For the past two years, Making Waves has been a private enterprise, after the Romanian state has completely withdrawn its financial support. This rather perplexing decision, while endangering the very existence of the event, has also had a positive effect in that it has freed its organizers from any official ideological mandates in film selection.

Propaganda, however, was the very theme of the 2013 edition, a concern fostered by a profound disillusionment with today’s political and economic realities.

While film was primarily a tool for socialist indoctrination in pre-­‐1989 Romania, never was it more effective than in those cases in which propaganda was subtle.

Showcased by Making Waves, the “Red Western” trilogy—The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians (1979, Dan Pita), The Actress, the Dollars, and the Transylvanians (1981, Mircea Veroiu), and The Baby, the Oil, and the Transylvanians (1982, Dan Pita)—focuses on three brothers of modest origins who prove their honesty, courage, and familial devotion amidst a slew of bandits, treacherous notables, and wanton women in a few small mining towns in 1900s Utah. The series was intended as mass entertainment and, while innocent of overt propaganda and even occasionally subversive of its purpose, it nevertheless had a clear nationalist agenda that snugly fitted the intentions of the communist establishment and resonates with viewers even today. Czechoslovak films such as Stefan Uher’s The Sun in a Net (1962) and Jirí Menzel’s Larks on a String (1969), both invited to the Romanian film festival as part of a regular slot reserved for other Eastern European countries, are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Their unconventional aesthetic choices, irony, and thematic audacity confronted the very establishment they were expected to support. Similar films existed in communist Romania, but were mostly isolated cases.

A panel conversation among directors, scriptwriters, and film critics from Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, a regular feature of Making Waves, further explored the tension between official ideological expectations and artistic freedom. As director Nae Caranfil pointed out, during communism, subversion functioned as a safety valve for a population that needed to believe it could still hold on to some measure of freedom. Lucian Pintilie’s The Reenactment (1969), Mircea Daneliuc’s Microphone Testing (1980), and Alexandru Tatos’s Sequences (1982) were probably the most important in this sense, and they later became influential to the NRC. Pre-­‐1989 cinema, however, was largely a means by which artists responded to the political exigencies of their times.

Any director is a manipulator who tries to impose a particular vision of the world onto viewers, Caranfil also suggested during the panel. Carefully orchestrated, particularly attentive to details, and playfully engaged with the history of cinema, his visions are spectacular and popular in Romania. Caranfil is the son of a

renowned film critic and grew up surrounded by stories of the trade. His early films—such as Sundays on Leave (1993), a network narrative about three young people’s desire to escape their small provincial town, Philanthropy (2002), a dark comedy in which the Bucharest street beggars are governed, from the shadows, by an Orwellian figure, and The Rest Is Silence (2007), an epic story about the first Romanian feature (The War for Independence, 1912)—reveal a predilection for elaborate narration inspired by the desire to seduce audiences, as the director has often emphasized. Closer to the Moon (2013), the opening film of Making Waves, is not an exception, but it stands apart from most other Romanian films: it is entirely spoken in English by British actors and has an American producer. The film is set in 1960s Bucharest and is based on a true event. At the end of the 1950s, a group of Jewish intellectuals, former members of the communist resistance during the war, carried out the most infamous heist of the time, for no apparent reason. Caught, they were forced, by one of the most bizarre decisions in Romanian judicial history, to re-­‐ enact the attack for the camera. Only then were the men executed. (The woman was spared because she was pregnant.). The original film was also the focus of Alexandru Solomon’s documentary The Great Communist Bank Robbery (2004), and, for both directors, there is a fascination with the apparatus and the ways in which reality was reinvented to suit the regime. Caranfil excessively romanticizes the event, conferring upon his characters an aura of heroism and idealism that brings the film closer to melodramatic parody and somehow diminishes this group’s tragedy. Nevertheless, he remains the most important proponent of a certain Hollywoodian imagination that dreams big and paints in saturated colors, with all the risks that come from it. …….

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, ORDER THE SPRING 2014 ISSUE OF CINEASTE AT WWW.CINEASTE.COM.

New Romanian Cinema Review: Slim, Sly & Funny '12:08 East Of Bucharest'

BY KEVIN JAGERNAUTH DECEMBER 2, 2013 6:29 PM

"12:08 East Of Bucharest" screened as part of The Film Society Lincoln Center's Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema series. It runs from November 29th through December 10th.

A history teacher, a widower and TV host walk into a television studio...it sounds like the setup to a punchline and in many ways, it is. That's more or less the basic premise of Corneliu Porumboiu's breakout 2006 film, "12:08 East Of Bucharest." The Camera d'Or and Label Europa Cinemas winner at Cannes put the filmmaker on the international map where he has continued to gain notice, thanks to 2009's "Police, Adjective" and this year's "When Evening Falls On Bucharest Or Metabolism". But even seven years later, '12:08' still sustains as an exciting and carefully calibrated work, a film that led the charge of recent Romanian cinema.

Running just a shade under ninety minutes, little goes to waste in Porumboiu's taut, lean but very patient film. The first half of the picture introduces us to the three men whose lives will on converge later on. First, there's Tiberiu Manescu (Ion Sapdaru), an alcoholic history teacher who, when he isn't being henpecked by his wife, is trying to manage the various debts he owes to people around town. Then there's Emanoil Piscoci (Mircea Andreescu), an elderly widower who has reluctantly agreed to play the neighborhood Santa Claus. Lastly, there's Virgil Jderescu (Teodor Corban), owner of a TV station with his own talk show, who is cheating on his wife, all while trying desperately to put together his next episode, which he wants to focus on the 16th anniversary of the Romanian Revolution that ousted Nicolae Ceausescu.

Certainly, '12:08' doesn't shy away from the grim reality of its setting. Like many of his contemporaries, Porumboiu favors an often stationary camera and long takes, here the greying and faded dirty blue of the apartments, streets and buildings the drama takes place in are unadorned. The rather miserable rut all three lead characters have found their lives shuffled into, and the nearly surreal and absurd world in which they exist are given ample time as well, with '12:08' unhurriedly creating a rich texture in which to set up what becomes an assuming, bravura finale that is both hilariously deadpan and quietly poetic all at once.

As the threads of the story are slowly drawn together, the final stretch of '12:08' takes place entirely during the broadcast of Jderescu's rather amateur talk show, where both Manescu and Piscoci have been rounded up as guests. The topic? Was there or wasn't there a revolution on December 22, 1989. The point of contention for Jderescu is whether the Romanian Revolution can truly be called that, if the population only rushed out into the streets after Ceausescu was deposed. It

seems like a measure of semantics, and an almost moot point to be dwelling on— and it kind of is—but Porumboiu uses that launching pad and these characters to dive into the complexity, beauty and complications of social and political change.

Even as Jderescu's supposedly serious discussion takes place on camera, Porumboiu quickly makes it clear that it's an argument without substance. With a malfunctioning tripod, operated by a cameraman utilizing crude zooms and cuts, almost every moment of the film's final section —presented as a "live" TV broadcast—finds Jderescu's insistence at trying to get to the "truth" behind his question regarding the revolution belittled. But the sharp writing by Porumboiu, and the wonderfully underplayed performances of all three eventually find a more potent conclusion emerging that's left to linger about the in-the-moment purity of new ideas and shifts in power that wind up being soiled by the day-today reality of living and making ends meet.

Filled with imagery both moving and mordant (a sequence of a Romanian big band ripping through a Latino song is fantastic), "12:08 East Of Bucharest" doesn't pretend to have a position on the fallout of the Romanian Revolution.

Instead it contends that different questions need to be asked and considered about post-Communist life, about the blame about the current state of the country, and where the future lies for Romania's youth. [A] http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/new-romanian-cinema-review-slim-sly-funny-1208-east-of-bucharest-20131201

Film Review: ‘Closer to the Moon’

DECEMBER 6, 2013 | 05:03PM PT

A strange but true Romanian bank robbery provides inspiration for this darkly comic tale of history and its myriad interpretations.

Ronnie Scheib Nae Caranfil’s “Closer to the Moon” offers an absurdist take on a real event: an audacious 1959 bank robbery carried out by high-ranking Jewish members of the Romanian Communist Party, who pretended they were shooting a movie. Caranfil imagines the protagonists as fully cognizant of the sociopolitical inanities that surround them — not least of which is the government’s totally false propaganda film about the heist, in which the culprits are forced to participate after having been arrested and condemned to death. Shot in English with a name British and American cast, this surprisingly entertaining black comedy could connect with American auds.

The plot recalls one of the enduring masterpieces of Romanian New Wave cinema, Lucien Pintile’s equally absurdist “Reconstruction” (1970), which also revolves around

the filmed re-enactment of a crime. Apparently the Securitate (the Romanian secret police), as evidenced by these two films’ storylines, took great pains to not only rewrite history, but also to shoot the rewrite as well.

Caranfil launches “Moon” with the holdup, seen through the innocent wide eyes of Virgil (Harry Lloyd, “Game of Thrones”), a young waiter in a cafe located across from the bank. Thrilled, as he believes, to witness the making of the first Romanian action film, he is inspired to become a cameraman himself. In that capacity, Virgil observes the subsequent trial of the robbers, in which each death sentence is received with applause and slapsticky gestures by the condemned defendants, elegant Yippies before the fact.

A flashback to a 1959 New Year’s Eve party in a whorehouse introduces the five members of the “gang.” All longtime Communist Party card carriers and resistance heroes during the war, they now hold important posts in their respective fields: Max (Mark Strong), the supremely ironic de facto leader of the group, is a chief inspector of police; Yorgu (Christian McKay) a respected history professor; Razvan (Joe Armstrong) a hotshot reporter; Dumi (Tim Plester) an oft-televised space scientist; and Alice (Vera Farmiga, in dramatic diva mode), Max’s ex-lover and mother of his son, is a political scientist. All are thoroughly disillusioned by what the revolution has wrought, above and beyond their imminent demotions in the ongoing Stalinist purge of Jews and intellectuals.

And so their damn-the-consequences robbery plan is hatched, since any action is better than passive acceptance of historical absurdity.

After their sentencing, the gang seizes every opportunity to wrest control of their tragedy and transform it into comedy. When the drunken director of the government’s reenactment (Allan Corduner) passes out, Max cavalierly assumes his function, Virgil happily seconding him behind the camera. Having bathed and exchanged their filthy striped prison uniforms for sophisticated formal wear, the convicts demand caviar and chateaubriand for their restaurant scene and generally revel in their short-term freedom, enjoying every aspect of the cosmic joke.

Refusing to focus “Closer to the Moon” around any individual or even shared p.o.v., Caranfil instead cuts between the protagonists, with Virgil providing a convenient point of convergence for stray narrative strands such as the character’s “Voice of America”listening Jewish landlord (David de Keyser) and an insomniac Securitate official (an outstanding Anton Lesser) obsessed with discerning the robbery’s motive. As with much recent Romanian cinema devoted to contemplating the past, an unwillingness to subscribe to any single version of events is an inevitable byproduct of the country’s infamously unreliable revisionist history.

Thesping by the largely British cast proves uniformly excellent. Production values aim high but wisely forgo undue slickness or exaggerated period reconstructions. If Caranfil’s mix of comedy and tragedy seems too scattershot to fully achieve catharsis, it does boast a rather Jewish sense of humor, itself a curious testimonial to the past.

Film Review: 'Closer to the Moon' Reviewed at Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, Nov. 29, 2013. Running time: 112 MIN. Production (Romania-U.S.-Poland-Italy) A Mandragora Movies/Agresywna Banda production.

Produced by Michael Fitzgerald, Denis Friedman, Alessandro Leone, Bobby Paunescu, Renata Ranieri. Executive producers, Penelope Glass, Ugo Tucci.

Crew Directed, written by Nae Caranfil. Camera (color, widescreen), Marius Panduru; editors, Larry Madaras, Roberto Silvi; music, Laruent Couson; production designer, Christian Niculescu; costume designer, Doina Levinta; sound (Dolby Digital), Dominique Viellard; sound designer, Marius Leftarache; supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer, Florin Tabacaru; casting, Laura Grosu, Liliana Toma.

With Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, Harry Lloyd, Anton Lesser, Christian McKay, Tim Plester, Joe Armstrong, Allan Corduner, Monica Barladeanu, David de Keyser. (English dialogue) http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/closer-to-the-moon-review-1200922266/

Film Review: ‘Domestic’

DECEMBER 23, 2013 | 05:47PM PT

In his third feature, Romanian helmer Sitaru turns his absurd, tragicomic eye on people's complex relationship to their pets.

Ronnie Scheib In Romanian helmer Adrian Sitaru’s “Domestic,” the intrusion of different animals into a domestic space — specifically, a dog, a chicken, a rabbit, a pigeon and a cat — sets off rapid-fire arguments, negotiations, recriminations and reconciliations. Sitaru, best known for his awardwinning shorts (and 2011 Locarno prizewinner “Best Intentions”), constructs the film as a series of tragicomic vignettes set in the similarly laid-out flats of an apartment building. Filled with vivid characters (most thesped by Sitaru regulars) anxious to impose their confused vision on the chaos around them, the film finds both pathos and humor in absurdity. Its

ambiguous tone, however, grounded in working-class Romanian mundanity, may nix wider distribution.

Largely shot from single fixed-camera setups within the relative intimacy of cramped rooms, the film revolves around the households of three men: Lazar (Adrian Titieni), Mihaes (Gheorghe Ifrim) and Toni (Sergio Costache). Lazar, a mild-mannered teacher and the designated building administrator, is introduced surrounded by angry residents all yapping at once, clamoring for the removal of a neighbor’s dog permanently housed in the hallway. Contentious overlapping dialogue continues on a smaller scale in Lazar’s kitchen when his wife (Clara Voda) brings home a live chicken. Joined by their 12-year-old daughter (Adriadna Titieni), they argue over who is going to kill it, financial and moral incentives flying back and forth until fowl blood spatters the adjoining bathroom wall.

Two close encounters of an animal kind trouble the dynamics of Mihaes’ family.

The first involves a live rabbit destined for the Christmas stewpot, the bunny hastily explained away by Dad as a recuperating accident victim when his kid (Dan Hurduc) takes a shine to it. When the truth is revealed, it causes a rift in father/son relations, but a wounded pigeon improbably restores domestic equilibrium.

The only family member who concerns Toni is the barely glimpsed Lidia, who appears to him in a recurring dream as a wife whom he no longer loves or recognizes since her accident — even though he has no wife, and doesn’t know anyone named Lidia. He puzzles endlessly over the dream. Meanwhile, he elects himself the pet problem-solver for the building, furnishing a cat for Lazar’s daughter and taking the troublesome dog to an animal shelter. But he regrets donating the feline, which indirectly causes a death, and when the dog escapes the shelter, Toni winds up with not one but three mutts.

Sitaru establishes a peculiar tone of matter-of-fact surrealism. The sudden, shocking death of one of the film’s main characters is casually announced in passing, while Toni’s recurring dream of an unknown person’s funeral is replayed multiple times, visually and verbally. And the rabbit-centric Christmas feast provides the occasion for Mihaes to expound at length on his theories concerning a Romanian Jesus Christ co-opted by Jews as a profitable tourist attraction for time travelers. Ifrim’s standout performance as the know-it-all, macho-posturing softie Mihaes grants particular fascination to his every pronouncement.

Pic’s modest production values befit the characters’ circumscribed existences.

The fixed sobriety of Adrian Silisteanu’s camerawork, a departure from Sitaru’s usual p.o.v. pyrotechnics, lends a certain gravitas to the insanity transpiring within the frame.

Film Review: 'Domestic' Reviewed at "Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema," Film Society of Lincoln Center, Dec. 3, 2013. (Also in Mar del Plata, Slamdance, Chicago film festivals.)

Running time: 82 MIN. Production (Romania-Germany) A 4 Proof Film/Unafilm production with the support of CNC Romania, Eurimages, Medienboard Berlin Brandenberg, HBO Romania, TVA. Produced by Monica Lazurean-Gorgan. Executive producers, Gorgan, Adrian Sitar, Titus Kreyenberg. Co-producer, Titus Kreyenberg.

Crew Directed, written by Adrian Sitaru. Camera (color), Adrian Silisteanu; editors, Andrei Gorgan, Sitaru; production designer, Cristian Niculescu; sound (Dolby Digital), Tamas Zanyi, Gabor Balazs; re-recording mixer, Matthias Schwab.

With Adrian Titieni, Gheorghe Ifrim, Sergius Costache, Clara Voda, Ioana Flora, Dan Hurduc, Adriadna Titieni. (Romanian dialogue) http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-domestic-1200991183/

Film Review: ‘Three Exercises of Interpretation’

DECEMBER 23, 2013 | 05:33PM PT

A three-part acting workshop becomes a brilliant albeit supremely uncommercial experiment in Romanian auteur Cristi Puiu's latest.

Ronnie Scheib Invited to conduct an actors’ workshop in Toulouse, Romanian helmer Cristi Puiu (“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”) opted to put his fledgling Gallic thesps through their paces in a 157-minute cinematic triptych, “Three Exercises of Interpretation.” Though based on arcane 19th-century “conversations” about the gospels, morality and the Antichrist, the film paradoxically achieves remarkable levels of naturalness: The pre-existent

text frees Puiu to explore, through compelling shifts in composition, various subtexts implied by the actors’ delivery, their occasional awkward silences and surrounding chitchat. Not initially intended for public viewing, “Interpretation” is a brilliant, albeit supremely uncommercial, fest entry.

The film is divided into three parts, each consisting of four different characters whose discussion, at some point, channels the writings of Russian philosopher/poet Vladimir Solovyov on which the exercises are based. With assorted minor variations, the conversations pit an atheistic disciple of peace and progress against a cynic who sees civilization as going from bad to worse; a Christian who believes in adherence to the catechism; and an outsider/observer rarely drawn into the fray.

The hourlong first segment, titled “The Mouse Is Under the Table,” transpires in the backyard garden of married university professors Marion and Patrick (the characters share names with their interpreters, Marion Bottolier and Patrick Vaillant), who have invited colleague Ugo (Ugo Broussot) for lunch. Ugo arrives with old childhood chum Jean-Benoit (Jean-Benoit Poirier), now a soldier.

A surprising amount of class hostility surfaces. Peacenik wife Marion plays the “progressive” part in Solovyov’s paradigm, while cynical hubby Patrick barely disguises his contempt for the invading philistine, avoiding eye contact with JeanBenoit and referring to him in the third person. Jean-Benoit, unhappy at having to listen to the pet theories aired by these “bourgeois,” grows steadily angrier in his role as impotent observer. Jesuit defender Ugo, meanwhile, seems to derive perverse pleasure from forcing him to stay.

If “Mouse” ignites a bellicose clash between ivory-tower ideals and battlefield realities, the second, shorter section, “The Cat Is in the Chair,” features a generational divide, its atmosphere not confrontational but rife with nervous dissatisfaction. Mother Anne-Marie (Anne-Marie Charles) and daughter Ludovine (Anberree) welcome Diana (Diana Sakalauskaite) and her filmmaker boyfriend, Barnabe (Barnabe Perrotey), into their living room. They debate morality, death and the Antichrist in less abstract, more contemporary terms than the characters did in the previous exercise, and with different emphases. In contrast to the allinclusive Marion, Diana, here cast in the “peace and progress” slot, comes off as uptight and judgmental. Anne-Marie’s religious beliefs, unlike Ugo’s, remain essentially private, while Patrick’s condescending cynicism becomes mischievous impudence in Ludovine’s youthful reading. Barnabe, a filmmaker, transforms Jean-Benoit’s unhappy-observer role into a chosen profession.

The third installment, “The Monkey Is on the Branch” (these chapter headings are taken from idiotically unhelpful sentences used to teach French), unfolds in a many-roomed studio. Four women — played by Hillary Keegin, Perrine Guffroy,

Anne Courpron and Nathalie Meunier — move around clearing tables and shuttering windows, in preparation for a seance. Throughout the ensuing, nowfamiliar conversation, a measure of female solidarity reigns; though all participate in the requisite Sololyov-dictated disagreements, the mood is thoughtful rather than argumentative.

Puiu’s potentially dry experiment proves by turns sobering, ironic, absurd and cathartic, the repeated text registering differently every time thanks to niceties of staging, camera placement and a guiding visual aesthetic that loosely evokes the cinema of Eric Rohmer (Puiu has even confessed to thinking of “Interpretation” as his “Moral Tales”). The first segment’s sedentary setup exposes the fragile nature of academic complacency, its lengthy static group shots artfully transforming into emotionally charged closeups. The one-room location of the second segment, however, lends the characters space to wander as Luchian Ciobanu’s lensing expresses the same vague restlessness that affects the characters. The film’s extraordinarily nuanced mise-en-scene concludes with the third installment’s two-tiered space and interconnected rooms, where players navigate freely and purposefully.

Film Review: 'Three Exercises of Interpretation' Reviewed at "Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema," Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, Dec. 1, 2013. (Also in Rotterdam, Toronto, Sarajevo film festivals.) Running time: 157 MIN. Original title: "Trois exercises d’interpretation" Production (France-Romania) A Chantier Normandes, Mandragora production. Produced by Nathalie Rizzardo.

Crew Directed by Cristi Puiu. Camera (color, HD), Luchian Ciobanu, editor, Dragos Apertri; sound, Jean-Paul Bernard; stage director, Stephanie Hubert.

With Ludovine Anberree, Marion Bottolier, Ugo Broussot, Anne-Marie Charles, Anne Courpron, Perrine Guffroy, Hillary Keegin, Nathalie Meunier, Barnabe Perrotey, Jean-Benoit Poirier, Diana Sakalauskaite, Patrick Vaillant. (French, English dialogue) http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-three-exercises-of-interpretation1200991802/

Closer to the Moon: Film Review 2:29 PM PST 12/7/2013 by John DeFore

Vera Farmiga stars in a title revolving around convicted bank robbers who are forced to reenact their crimes for a propaganda film.

A quintet of Jews seeing their status drop in postwar Romania rob a bank in Nae Caranfil's Closer to the Moon, only to be caught, convicted, and forced to reenact their crime in a slyly anti-Semitic propaganda film. Though based on a true story, the film discards some of its claim to authenticity right off the bat, casting Brits and Americans in all the leads and having them speak English instead of Romanian; later, it will have trouble establishing the gang's motives for a crime they all but knew would lead to their execution. Stateside potential is modest for the semi-convincing yet enjoyable tale, relying on familiar names in a cast that acquits itself well given the demands of the unusual plot.

Led by a high-ranking police officer (Mark Strong's Max Rosenthal) and the political academic Alice (Vera Farmiga), the five friends had been wartime resistance fighters and later attained prominent positions in the Communist party. As years wore on, though, Jews and intellectuals found their influence waning. As the movie would have it, the former movers-and-shakers decided to rob the bank as a political provocation, preferring to receive death sentences if they were caught than to live lives of diminishing excitement.

The film opens with their flamboyant crime, a quick caper in which they pulled up to a national bank in trucks, announced to bystanders that they were shooting a movie, and hijacked a poorly guarded van delivering cash. One witness is Virgil (Harry Lloyd), a fresh-faced waiter who, believing he has seen a real film shoot, immediately decides to pursue filmmaking.

Cut to some time later, when Virgil is apprentice to an alcoholic director and often gets to do his boss's job. Assigned to film the kangaroo-court trial of some accused thieves, he's shocked to see the faux-moviemakers. After they're convicted, and Party officials decide to praise the State's efficiency in a film dramatizing their scheme and capture, he's part of the beleaguered crew.

This hokey documentary actually was made (we see scenes in the end credits), and Caranfil imagines its production as a bureaucrat-monitored affair in which the convicts practically ran the show, cavorting and playing dress-up for the cameras while Virgil looks on admiringly. Their mirth during all this (even at their sentencing, they can barely suppress giggles) is difficult to digest, too close to actual merriment to be considered absurdist gallows humor. But their camaraderie sustains things while the script teases with near-happy endings and flashbacks to the plotting of the heist. Late in the film Caranfil returns to a rooftop birthday dinner where Max has the idea for the crime and sells his pals on it, with a big moon in the sky and talk of the Space Race illustrating his longing for greatness. The dialogue may not sell viewers on the motivations for a robbery where the loot was a nearly worthless currency, but the setting offers a melancholy that would be welcome elsewhere in the film.

Production Company: Mandragora Movies, Agresywna Banda Cast: Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, Harry Lloyd, Anton Lesser, Joe Armstrong, Christian McKay

Director-Screenwriter: Nae Caranfil Producers: Michael Fitzgerald, Denis Friedman, Alessandro Leone, Bobby Paunescu, Renata Ranieri Executive producers: Penelope Glass, Ugo Tucci Director of photography: Marius Panduru Production designer: Christian Niculescu Music: Laurent Couson Costume designer: Doina Levinta Editors: Larry Madaras, Roberto Silvi No rating, 112 minutes http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/closer-moon-film-review-663976

Romanian film tells true, curious tale of Jewish bank-robbing intellectuals ‘Closer to the Moon,’ most costly Romanian movie ever, takes on improbable tale of the Ionid Gang, orchestrators of most famous heist behind Iron Curtain

BY JORDAN HOFFMAN December 5, 2013, 5:38 am

NEW YORK — “Nobody exactly knows to this day what really happened,” Romanian film director Nae Caranfil says of the Ionid Gang, a group of Jewish intellectuals and high ranking Communist Party members who executed the most famous bank robbery behind the Iron Curtain.

Caranfil became fascinated with the story after seeing a recent documentary about the topic, and kept coming back to one

image: a group of scraggly prisoners on a day trip from death row entering a barber’s shop and emerging as movie stars.

Among the more unique facts of the case is the burglars were later forced to make a propaganda film recreating (to an extent) their caper.

Caranfil’s new film “Closer To The Moon” was the opening night film of this year’s “Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013,” the 8th edition of the annual celebration of Romanian movies at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. It also served as its world premiere.

“Closer to the Moon” is the most expensive Romanian movie ever made, starring American and English actors like Vera Farmiga (“The Departed”), Mark Strong (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”), and Harry Lloyd (“Game of Thrones”). It is rather different from the talk-heavy, oftentimes deadpan/absurdist dramas of “New Romanian Cinema” that have gained attention in recent years like Cristian Mungiu’s “Beyond the Hills,” Cristi Puiu’s “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu,” Radu Jude’s “Everybody in Our Family,” Calin Peter Netzer’s “Child’s Pose” or Corneliu Porumboiu’s “12:08 East of Bucharest.”

(Suggestion: dip your toe in by renting one of the above films.

The “New Romanian Cinema”-style is for a very particular taste.

If you like one of these movies, you’ll like ‘em all. But if you find yourself bored to tears – if not even annoyed at how long it takes for anyone to stop talking and do something, then don’t worry, you have a lot of company.)

“Closer To The Moon” has much more spring in its step, but that doesn’t mean it lacks insight into life during the Communist era.

A pre-title crawl tells how Romanian Jews were quick to join the Communist Party prior to and during World War II. After the Red Army came, many of Jews were integrated into positions of

power. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, antiSemitism had entered the equation and many found themselves shunned. Furthermore, the party had strayed from much of its idealism, leading to some friction with Jewish intellectuals.

This doesn’t explain exactly why a group of Jews ripped off a bank in 1959, but the film offers an interpretation that by forcing the people to recognize that crime could happen in the “worker’s paradise” it would expose feelings of resentment.

The government, however, suggested it was a Zionist conspiracy to smuggle Jews into Israel, and as counterrevolutionaries, the group must be made an example of. “We are not anti-Semites,” a prosecutor says in the film, “but we are not indifferent to the threat of Zionism.” The government therefore decides to shoot a film about the event, starring the actual players, before their death sentences are carried out.

Harry Lloyd and Vera Farmiga in ‘Closer to the Moon’ (photo credit: courtesy Mandragora Movies)

That’s where Harry Lloyd’s character comes in. He’s the young filmmaker hired by the government to shoot the state-dictated scenario. It’s through him, his kinship with group leaders Mark Strong and Vera Farmiga that we learn, or at least get an inkling, as to what truly went down. It’s also where we see some good

bits of dark comedy, like a government censor admonishing a police officer for reacting as he would naturally on film.

“Communist police don’t strike people!” he shouts, ordering a different take.

Moviegoers interested in political theory will have a good time with the dinner parties and rap sessions in “Closer to the Moon.” Those looking for a whip-smart “Ocean’s Eleven”-style heist picture should probably look elsewhere. But those interested in Jewish signifiers ought to have a field day.

When we first meet the accused (the name is changed to the Rosenthal Gang in the film) they are dressed in concentration camp-style gray striped uniforms. The “true” propaganda film that plays during the closing credits shows different clothing.

Then there’s Harry Lloyd’s landlord, Mr. Zilber, a bearded old Jew who spends his nights drinking Slivovitz and listening to static-y Voice of America. “Why not listen to Brahms clearly, on an official station?” he’s asked. “Because on an official station even Brahms becomes propaganda,” he warns.

Lloyd and Farmiga’s character form a romantic relationship and the film’s tearful finale is cut to a montage that includes her young son learning traditional dances for his bar mitzvah. We learn in closing credits that her children later emigrated to Israel, where some descendents still live.

A scene from ‘Closer to the Moon’ (photo credit: courtesy Mandragora Movies)

But were these righteous people or were they crooks? “Closer to The Moon” is an odd enough film that a stray shot of people stealing milk bottles is meant to be looked upon as something of a good thing. That by shaking things up they would eventually fray the Communist system enough that it would fail. You and your own group of smoking intellectuals can see the movie and argue if that makes sense.

In addition to its unique political perspective, the movie also opens with some light humor (Lloyd’s filmmaking mentor is a fall down drunk) that may seem at odds with the seriousness of direct political action during the Communist period.

At the Lincoln Center world premiere a Romanian woman in the auditorium shouted down the director, producer Michael Fitzgerald, actor Harry Lloyd and one of the festival organizers.

She complained that this was not how Communism was, that this was a silly “western or Italian film” and basically frothed at the mouth and clutched her pearls.

Director Caranfil responded in good form. He lived through Communism, too, and recalled that not every day was bleak.

People laughed and sang and lived life – it was not “gray every

day” as you sometimes see in movies. He also added that if it seemed like there was slapstick, it was intentional, that “the propaganda of the time was all slapstick – all farce.”

Director Nae Caranfil (far right) with the creative team and backers of the Romanian Film Institute at the Lincoln Center event. (photo credit: Jordan Hoffman)

Further distribution plans for “Closer to The Moon” have yet to be detailed, but one can expect it to hit international markets next year. http://www.timesofisrael.com/romanian-film-about-jewish-bank-robbersmakes-waves/

New Cinematic Waves From Romania Several Jewish-interest films in festival.

11/26/2013 George Robinson Special To The Jewish Week

Romania might seem like an unlikely home for one of Europe’s most exciting cinematic “new waves.” On the other hand, “unlikely” is a word that applies to much of the country’s history.

Tim Plester, Harry Lloyd, Mark Strong, Vera Farmiga and Joe Armstrong in Nae Caranfil “Closer to the Moon.”

This thought occurs on the occasion of the eighth annual presentation of “Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema,” which opens Nov. 29.

Appropriately, the opening night film for this year’s festival recalls one of the most bizarre incidents in the Cold War era.

“Closer to the Moon,” written and directed by Nae Caranfil, is based on a true story that is guaranteed to test anyone’s credulity. In 1959, an armored car carrying 1.6 million Romanian lei (approximately $250,000 in 1959 U.S. dollars) was held up in front of the Romanian National Bank in Bucharest.

Within weeks, the police announced the arrest of six individuals, five men and one woman. All six were prominent members of the Romanian Communist Party. All six were Jewish. Given that the lei was worthless outside Romanian

and the swag was instantly traceable, it is hard to imagine what they had in mind. But the heist itself was ingenious: the thieves masqueraded as a camera crew and cast ostensibly shooting ... a heist picture.

The story, which Caranfil apparently follows closely, starts to get weirder as the criminals are apprehended. They are told that if they want to avoid the death penalty, they must agree to play themselves in a film that recreates the crime. The resulting film, “Reconstruction,” is a scurrilous piece of work that was released in Romania in 1960, after which the five men were executed.

The woman, a wife of one of the five, received a life sentence.

In 2004 Romanian documentarian Alexandru Solomon made a fascinating non-fiction film about these events, “The Great Communist Bank Robbery,” which played the New York Jewish Film Festival. Caranfil’s film, the official Romanian entry for the foreign-language Oscar, takes us back to fiction and features a cast that includes several familiar American and British actors, including Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, Allan Corduner and Harry Lloyd. The film was unavailable at press time, but the story is so insane that it would be hard to make an uninteresting film from it.

To my mind, the real highlight of the festival this year is a mini-retrospective of the films of Corneliu Porumboiu. The director announced himself with a stunning debut film “12:08 East of Bucharest” (2006), a brilliant deadpan satire on the manufactured heroism of the fall of Ceausescu. He followed that with an even darker, more rigorous film, “Police, Adjective.” The festival’s program of his films includes both of these excellent works as well as a program of his shorts and his most recent feature, “When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism,” the festival’s closing night film.

“Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema” will be presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Film Institute, Nov. 29-Dec. 3 at the Walter Reade Theater and the Eleanor Bunin Munroe Film Center (both at Lincoln Center, 65th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway). For information, go to www.filmlinc.com. In addition, the series will continue at the Jacob Burns Film Center (364 Manville Road, Pleasantville, in Westchester County) Dec. 5-10. For information, go to www.burnsfilmcenter.org.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/new-cinematic-wavesromania

The 8th edition of the leading Romanian film festival placed in the US, Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema is around the corner and promises to highlight the best in Romanian contemporary cinema as well as rarely seen classic masterpieces!

The festival returns from November 29th to December 3rd to the Film Society of Lincoln Center and expands from 5-10 December to the Jacob Burns Film Center.

This is the most surprising edition yet.

The festival will open its gates with the world premiere of the Romanian film Closer to the Moon by Nae Caranfil, shot in English with a stellar international cast.

The audience will also have the chance to enjoy the New York Premiere of the winner of the Golden Bear at this year΄s Berlinale, Child΄s Pose, by Calin Peter Netzer, as well as Corneliu Porumboiu΄s newest film, When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, which will screen at the closing ceremony of the festival, in presence of the director himself.

But new releases don΄t stop here! Among the films we meet Domestic,

by Andrian Sitaru and Love Building by Iulia Rugina, as well as the documentaries Here I mean... There, by Laura Capatana Juller and The Bukuresti Experimentby Tom Wilson, which dares to investigate a strange experiment from Romania΄s recent history.

This year, at the Special Screenings section, film-lovers will watch Cristi Puiu’s trilogy Three Exercises of Interpretation, as well as the 2013 TIFF trailers also directed by Cristi Puiu, starring Luminita Gheorghiu.

Making Waves will continue its special program about relationship between arts and politics, focusing on film as a propaganda tool then and now with a panel conversation inviting Czech Republic and Slovakia to join.

Special screenings will accompany the conversation with the socalled Transylvanians’ Trilogy, a hugely popular series made in the ‘80s consisted of the following movies: - The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians, by Dan Pita, Romania, 1979, 98min - The Actress, the Dollars and the Transylvanians by Mircea Veroiu, Romania, 1981, 72min - The Oil, the Baby and the Transylvanias by Dan Pita, Romania, 1982, 108min And of course, to demonstrate the different ways in which Czechoslovakia’s and Romania’s national cinema was influenced, the screenings will continue with: - The Sun in a Net, by Stefan Uher, Czechoslovakia, 1962, 90min - Larks on a String, by Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia, 1969, 100min

Police, Adjective Following a retrospective on the famous director Corneliu Porumboiu, in order to fully understand his personal style and vision about cinema, they will, not only screen his widely awarded and critically acclaimed feature films 12:08 East of Bucharest and Police, Adjective, but also three of his short films:

Liviu’s Dream, A Trip to the City, Gone With the Wine.

Keep in mind that apart from features, from Saturday 30 of November until Sunday 1 of December, seven new Romanian Short Films are going to be screened. Among them we meet altcineAction! 2013 winner of Alida Dimitriou Award, The Pill of Happiness by Cecilia Felmeri.

The rest of the films that will screen are 12 minutes by Nicolas Constantin Tanase (Romania, 2013, 33min), Bad Penny by Andrei Cretulescu (Romania, 2013, 12΄), In the Fishbowl by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu (Romania, 2013, 21min), The Matriarch by Nemethi Barna (Romania, 2013, 8min), My Baby by Luiza Parvu (Romania, 2013, 19min) Shadow of a Cloud by Radu Jude (Romania, 2013, 30min).

Dominique Nasta, Professor of Film Studies at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, will be present for the launch of her recently published book – Conteporary Romanian Cinema. The History of an Unexpected Mireacle (Wall-flower Press, 2013). This amazingly well-documented book draws connections between Romania΄s cinema past and present and tries to answer an extremely difficult question: how was the miracle of the New Wave possible?

The 8th edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema is presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and theRomanian Film Initiative in partnership with the Jacob Burns Film Center and Transilvania International Film Festival, and numerous partners and supporters.

Remember that most films screen only once, so hurry up to reserve your seat!

Learn more here. http://www.altcine.com/details.php?id=1047

Making Waves: Netzer Taps a Mother Lode of Moral Ambiguity in “Child’s Pose” Posted by Brian Brooks on October 31, 2013 in The Season • Making Waves • Interviews

Veteran Romanian actress Luminiţa Gheorghiu gives a dynamic performance as both determined matriarch and quietly tragic figure in Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer's Child's Pose. She plays Cornelia, an upper middle class woman with a background in architecture, a doctor husband, furs, nice cars and home, cultured friends, and an immature son whom she painfully adores.

Child's Pose, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and is Romania's entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar consideration this year, has been a favorite of critics at festivals around the world and will make its New York Premiere as the Centerpiece of

the upcoming Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema festival (November 29 - December 4).

Cornelia as domineering mother comes into full play after she gets word her son has been arrested for hitting a 14 year old boy with his car. Who is at fault isn't exactly clear, but arriving at the police station to fetch her son, she is ready to wield her connections and influence to exonerate her only offspring, Barbu (Bogdan Dumitrache). Cornelia immediately orchestrates a plan. She will pay a visit to the witness and convince him that his initial testimony may not be exactly correct. She will also bring some cash. At the police station, she questions every step of the investigation and charms the officers, who may have use for her connections after all.

On the home front, she questions her son's girlfriend, learning—in some uncomfortable detail—about their sex life and other secrets about her emotionally distant son. Though he's dependent on his parents' largesse and willingness to take control of a delicate situation that is leaving him more vulnerable than ever, Barbu's resentment boils over. He detests his mother's growing encroachment in his life even as he is dependent on her ability to skillfully face down his mounting trouble.

Director Calin Peter Netzer spoke with FilmLinc Daily about Child's Pose via Skype from Romania soon after Film Society announced that the film will have its New York debut in the upcoming series. Though he initially thought of Gheorghiu—who played the mother in Cristian Mungiu's 2007 Oscar-winnerMonths, 3 Weeks and 2 Days—to play the role, he tells why he looked at dozens of actresses before casting her.

And while the film gives a quiet indictment on the power dynamics of the rich and well connected, the film is centrally about a dysfunctional family trying desperately to make it all right.

Luminiţa Gheorghiu will attend the Centerpiece screening of Child's Pose on November 30.

FilmLinc Daily: You co-wrote this drama with Razvan Radulescu. Did you both have a collective intuition or experience that precipitated the development of the mother-son story?

Calin Peter Netzer:

Initially we had another project in mind. It was also about a dysfunctional family, but about retired people from England going to the south of Spain, but while developing this we started talking about our families and the dysfunction in our families and also about our mothers. So we realized that we had a subject and a character. That was the starting point.

Before we started writing we made a synopsis and discussed the way the story would develop. We saw many examples of car crashes in the news, so that [worked its way] into the story.

FD: Amidst the mother-son drama, there's also an interesting class dynamic in this story. Cornelia and her son Barbu are part of a wealthy family and the accident brings them into contact with a working class family. And Cornelia is not reticent to use her influence...

CPN:

We're talking about Romanian upper middle class people and also the film is talking about a mother-son relationship. This is a neurotic family. If Barbu didn't come from a wealthy family, perhaps things would have turned out differently. Cornelia had influence over the police

officers. From the first scene, it was clear they could do nothing more and they're trying to find some advantages for themselves.

The film touches on corruption, but in our minds when we wrote the script, we weren't thinking about corruption as a main part of the story— it was secondary really. The focus is on this pathological relationship between mother and son. Corruption is really something that happens in Romania naturally these days so it is really secondary.

FD: Cornelia obviously loves her son, but she's very overbearing. I think her heart is in the right place, though her execution is perhaps over the top.

CPN:

Cornelia's intentions are good, but she's also made a lot of mistakes. He is the way that he is because of Cornelia. He was raised in a dysfunctional, unhealthy family. Cornelia didn't have a good relationship with her husband, so she moved her attention in an unhealthy way toward Barbu. She's very possessive of him. But the film does not judge or give answers. I wanted the film to pose questions about their relationship.

FD: Barbu is resentful of his mother's omnipresence in his life, but he's also quite dependent on it‌ CPN:

The story is also about the decadence on each side, really. After the accident, Barbu is in shock and Cornelia takes that opportunity to bring him back emotionally. There's a conflict between Barbu's conscious and unconscious because, in some ways, he's still a child. In his conscience, he wants to be a grownup. He wants to get away.

Cornelia is trying to win him back nevertheless. This is her chance to "bring him back" so to speak.

FD: How did you cast the two leads?

CPN:

With Barbu (played by Bogdan Dumitrache), it was easy. I cast him immediately. I've worked with him in other films and we're friends.

Cornelia was more difficult. From the beginning we wrote the script with her in mind, but we tried to find a different actress for that role because Luminiţa Gheorghiu is a well known actress here in Romania, so I thought about finding a new face, so to speak. I saw 30 or 40 other actresses, but Liminita was by far the best choice.

The role was quite difficult for her, though. I think this is the first time she's played the main character in a film. It was also difficult for her because she's never played such a high society lady and she was a bit scared of doing that. There wasn't much talking about the character. I wanted to change her look in many ways and she at first agreed, but then got scared. At some point she didn't want to do the changes, but then agreed. It was a long journey…

FD: Tell me about the style of shooting. The camera had the feel of being a "fly on the wall" rather than simply viewing the plot unfold via the usual moviegoing experience…

CPN:

That was the intention. We wanted it to make it very realistic and to place the cameraman right in the middle of the action. Shooting was a challenge because of the budget, which only allowed for 30 days, so we decided to shoot on digital with two cameras. There wasn't a lot of time to figure out different options, so after the rehearsal the D.P. just went right into the middle of the story.

FD: You of course won the Golden Bear in Berlin and this film is representing Romania as its choice for Best Foreign Language Oscar consideration. Congratulations‌ CPN:

That was a great experience in Berlin. I've been traveling to a lot of festivals in many countries to promote the film. It's been great, but of course you get a bit tired too.

FD: Romania continues to be an exciting place for cinema. What's your country's secret? [Laughs] Are Romanians just naturally good storytellers?

CPN:

It's a question I get a lot. I really don't know. I think maybe there's a talented generation working right now. I think we're trying to talk about honest things and I think that's the most important thing for filmmaking generally. At least that's one of the answers. There's also competition between us, which is still healthy. [Laughs] But I don't exactly know‌ The so called Romanian New Wave has been going for over 10 years... http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/making-waves-romanian-childs-posecalin-peter-netzer-luminitia-gheorghiu

Seeing Red: When “The Transylvanians Trilogy” Rolled Into Town Posted by Erik Luers on November 27, 2013 in Making Waves • Video

Dan Pita's The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians (1979)

The modern western has been a cultural staple of American cinema for so long now that it'd be easy to overlook those it influenced overseas.

Three so-called Red Westerns known as "The Transylvanians Trilogy," screening on brand new 35mm prints this weekend in Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema, represent a triptych of stories both vast and intimate, for the masses and yet ethnically specific, which find themselves rooted in American folklore and something else entirely.

A Romanian production through and through, these U.S.A.-set features tell the tale of John Brad, a rebellious cowboy (with a great shot) looking to make his way back to his native Romania. In what would become a pattern, the films' dry titles humorously list, rather than explain, the elements of their story upfront. The first entry in the series, The Prophet, The Gold and The Transylvanians (1979), primarily follows Brad, currently labeled an outlaw for shooting a man dead. Through misguided hearsay, many believe Brad's actions to have been cowardly and cruel, while the film implies he pulled the trigger out of self-defense.

Nonetheless, Brad goes into hiding in the great state of Utah, his two very foreign brothers arriving in the town of Cedar City afterward to locate him.

Dan Pita's The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians (1979)

Director Dan Pita treats us to the welcome genre familiars: pokerplaying and heavy drinking in the old time saloon, arguments which escalate all too quickly into shootouts, classy female stage performers, stilted dialogue and, in a welcomed surprise, a very strong and often synthesized score. He provides one heck of an adversary for his hero as well. With the villainous characterization of its lead antagonist, Mr. Waltrop, and his overly obedient plethora of wives and offspring, the film takes a few jabs at Mormonism. At one point, Waltrop even attempts to

force June, a recently father-less girl held captive, to marry his equally despicable son. No need to fear: Johnny Brad saves the day and rides into the sunset with his posse by film's end.

Richard PeĂąa, who will introduce the Friday evening screening, recently reflected on his first experience with the work. “In 1984, when I went to Romania for the first time, I had the pleasure of seeing Dan Piŧa's The Prophet, The Gold and The Transylvanians. I knew already that Dan was a great admirer of westerns; I had no idea how sharply observed and hugely entertaining his own contribution to the genre would be.

Subsequently, I was able to see the other installments of the Transylvanian series, by Dan and Mircea Veroiu, and enjoyed them every bit as much. These Film Society screenings will be a rare opportunity to see--in beautiful new 35mm prints--these striking examples of 'Red Westerns,' a genre that proved wildly popular with Romanian as well as other audiences in the former Soviet bloc."

The second film in the series, which at just over 70 minutes is also the briefest, may be considered the best of the bunch. Opening with an elaborate train sequence, The Actress, The Dollars and The Transylvanians (1981) features our heroes arriving in a new town filled with discrimination. Once again, all is not what it seems. After word gets out about a locomotive ambush conducted by bloodthirsty Native Americans, the town turns against the tribe. The "pale faces" in an uproar shouldn't be so easily deceived, however. Those Native Americans aren't really Native Americans at all, but rather an evil gang of traveling thespians and circus performers in disguise, inciting one culture's hatred for another for their own financial gain.

The film draws many similarities between our outcast Romanian leads and the authentic Native Americans who are unjustly persecuted. A progressive take on cowboy politics, the film pulls the heartstrings when one of Johnny Brad's brothers leaves the dinner table to sit on the floor with a Native American. The two break bread and enjoy a meal together, not altogether lost in translation. The two groups will work together to take down the real outsiders; rather than go back to the well

and conclude with a shootout, director Mircea Veroiu gets the opportunity to end things with a welcomed bloody sword fight.

Series originator Dan Pita returned for The Oil, The Baby and The Transylvanians (1982), wrapping up the story nicely while providing our leads with hardships (cold weather, a need for shelter) and rewards (marriage, a baby and a way home). It is also the most existential and, given the film's ultra vibrant opening credits song, the most poporiented. “Hired gun, you'll see,” one lyric states as somewhat of a premonition or challenge, “hired gun, as weak as can be. Hired gun, beware, hired gun, if you die, whose to care?” The song kicks things into high gear before settling down to tell one last tale of Johnny Brad fighting a gluttonous group who desire full control of the land.

One of the villains, a youngish punk named Collins who first encounters Brad in a barbershop, even sports an earring on his left ear and looks like he just stepped off a tour bus. This isn't to say the morally misguided cretin isn't intelligent. In one scene, he emphasizes his quest for complete domination while finding the time to drop some names.

“Now tell me, senior Murray,” Collins asks a frightened family looking to flee town, “when you sold your farm, why wouldn't you sell it to us?”

“Because you were forcing me to sell it to you,” is the response Collins receives before condescendingly responding with “That's an answer good enough for Abe Lincoln.”

Epic in length but singular in scope, "The Translvanians Trilogy" provides a unique viewing experience. The films portray the American landscape as distinctly foreign and otherworldly, while at the same time mirroring some of our favorite Westerns' contemplative pathos. For every familiar but exciting stand-off, there's something offkilter that makes you reevaluate the intimate surroundings; at one point we see a Wanted poster alerting citizens that a man is on the loose for murder and "rubbery." Whether it be an homage, a pastiche or a reimagining, these three films craft a personal immigrant story within a genre saddled with preconceived and expected notions.

These films screen as part of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema, which runs November 29 - December 3 at Film Society of Lincoln Center. http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/when-the-transylvanians-trilogyrolled-into-town

Art in All Its Forms: Cristi Puiu’s 2013 TIFF Trailers Posted by Erik Luers on December 01, 2013 in Making Waves

While there are multiple film festivals identified by the abbreviation TIFF, theTransilvania International Film Festival is the only one to have hired fellow countryman Cristi Puiu to shape its visual advertising.

Earlier this year, Puiu was given the task of creating 20 promotional spots to get the word out on TIFF (Romania's first international film festival), which was preparing for its 12th edition. With renowned Romanian actress Luminița Gheorghiu on board, Puiu got to work proving that a cohesive whole could be just as strong as its individual parts.

Upon viewing this series of trailers, it grows eminently clear that they should be viewed as two distinct stories. The first 10, free of dialogue,

portray a woman (Gheorghiu) going about her life as an acute observer of her environment. Whether she be trying on multiple wigs in a public bathroom (as a discrete man with a bloodied nose runs in to wash his face) or waiting in the cold for a bus that may or may not arrive, the woman is going about her life with multiple responsibilities and a lot weighing on her mind. This later escalates as we see her outside what appears to be a prison, waiting rather patiently for her significant other.

They dine at a fancy restaurant, spend a few hours in a hotel room and eventually part ways back at the prison, its giant doors opening and closing as if for the final time. Calmly morose and quietly humorous — the final segment features the woman stuck on a train platform next to a bearded man enamored with chewing an unhealthy amount of bubble gum — this 10-part story feels complete while still casting its net wide with surmounting complexities.

The second series of trailers takes place on a highway in Bucharest, the camera placed in the backseat of a car behind a male driver and his female passenger (Gheorghiu again). The woman listens to the man's life-story, from his struggles with his ex-wife to his love for his daughter who he rarely sees anymore (“How can you build a relationship with a child in two hours every two weeks? “) and recounts her recent sleepwalking accidents, which greatly concern him. Wordplay and the joy of intimate conversation reign supreme here, the woman, not quite a stranger nor a friend, always inquiring with more questions. As the man discusses his upbringing, college experiences and current career — before concluding with a back-and-forth about the origin of their favorite foods—this extended conversation deepens as it continues forward.

Even if you've come across one or two of these brief trailers on the internet, Making Waves' free program, playing twice in our Amphitheater, offers a chance to properly view them in consecutive order. A narrative emerges as you watch, begging for your full attention and willingness to consume them all. http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/art-in-all-its-forms-crisit-puius-2013tiff-trailers

Love Building | Review

By Nicholas Bell on December 4, 2013

Faulty Blueprint: Rugina’s Debut Pleasures the Crowd, Numbs the Mind A certifiable hit at the Romanian box office, Iulia Rugina’s directorial debut, Love Building has the formulaic, crowd pleasing prowess of similar Western counterparts where hokey endeavors are piled one on top of another until, instead of revealing its own realistic mess, we reach a staunchly uplifting and/or hopelessly trite finale. To her credit, Rugina doesn’t completely dissolve her narrative in saccharine fantasyland by ending on an open-ended sequence that doesn’t quite put the ribbon on the wrapped box, but neither is it operating as anything other than simplistic fluff. While it doesn’t neatly solve the many problems of its many characters, the film also fails to question its own complicity in these types of problems, namely that maybe our conditioned, heteronormative notions of love and successfully realistic relationships is the root of discord.

Love Building is a weeklong camp designed to help couples mend their broken or failing relationships. Fourteen couples are about to converge, with the program being run by three trainers who are supposed to assist the couples through various activities. Only, the three trainers all seem to be affected by their own personal relationships and problems, and one of them is convinced that the very notion of love isn’t real. While they hardly seem to be invested in helping their clientele, the camp is ultimately run by a slick talking businesswoman who

expects results in order for the camp to get necessary publicity, which includes offering a lucrative prize to the “most successful couple.”

Love Building seems easily like the type of foreign language film studios love to remake, but it already feels naggingly similar to something like 2009’s Vince Vaughn starrer, Couples Retreat. And at least that film, co-written by Vaughn and Jon Favreau, had the good sense to minimize its couplings. Rugina tries to juggle fourteen couples plus the various issues of the three clueless counselors, and we’re treated to a breathless merry-go-round of people that are only defined by their problems instead of presented as actual characters. Likewise, they each conveniently seem to have only one definable problem.

The inclusion of two lesbian couples but no gay men also makes the film’s intent suspicious, as the lesbians seem more easily assimilated into the prized model of the heteronormative realm, i.e, the monogamous relationship (the problems experienced by the lesbian couples in question are alcoholism and prejudice, as in one of the ladies seems reluctant to identify as gay due to socially based repercussions). Rather than take any time to actually grapple with these issues, they’re stirred into the big pot of clips we see of all the couples, meant to be black and white documentary style snapshots as they speak directly to the counselors (and us) about their issues.

Since their number is easier to contain, we get more nuanced performances from the three camp counselors, each played by recognizable faces from the Romanian New Wave, including Porumboiu favorite Dragos Bucur (Police, Adjective), Dorian Boguta (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) and Alexandru Papadopol (Tales from the Golden Age), though their interactions with their boss (Silvia Morosanu, unfortunately quite wooden) feel extremely amateurish.

Because nothing seems well thought out, it’s short running time, mostly comprised of random snippets, Love Building feels and looks a bit rough around the edges, and you come to pity the poor, troubled saps that were fooled into thinking (and paying) for this hokey program to help rebuild their troubled relationships, even if the best therapy may indeed be witnessing firsthand that no one has ever experienced a perfect union. However, what we need less of is the continual reinforcement of relationship rhetoric like this that asserts what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Reviewed on December 1, 2013 for the 8th edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema at the Film Society ★ 1/2 / ★★★★★ http://www.ioncinema.com/reviews/love-building-review

Domestic | Review

By Nicholas Bell on December 4, 2013

Creature Discomfort: Sitaru Returns to Familial Unrest For his third feature film, Domestic, Romanian director Adrian Sitaru returns to the blackly comedic potential of familial discord that made his successful sophomore feature, Best Intentions, unspool like a jocular slice of Cristi Puiu.

While that film had autobiographical roots for Sitaru in its examination of one family’s grappling with matriarchal medical issues, here we get a triptych of nuclear families, all living in the same apartment complex and all suffering various ramifications brought upon by the consequences of interacting with domesticated animals, some of whom have rather murky roles as either an item of entertainment or consumption. What results is a sometimes droll tragicomedy that veers between the maudlin and mundane.

Beginning with a group of apartment complex residents complaining to the building administrator, Mr. Lazar (Adrian Titieni, also appearing in this

year’s Child’s Pose) about the annoyances caused by one someone’s insistence on keeping their dog locked outside of the apartment, we retreat into the Lazar household where wife Doamna (Clara Voda) has brought home a hen to butcher for dinner. Neither of them seem up to the task, but their teenage daughter Mara (Ariadna Titieni) gleefully swindles money out of her parents to cut the creature’s throat. We learn that Mara had been gifted a cat recently from Toni (Sergiu Costache), one of the other tenants, an animal she’s quite attached to.

Toni and Mihaes (Gheorghe Ifrom), a fellow resident and taxi driver, have now offered to ‘take care of’ the problematic canine in the building for Mara’s father.

We then meet Mihaes’ family when he brings home a rabbit to be fattened up for a future meal, but his young son takes an immediate liking to the creature and false promises are made. Meanwhile, Toni’s resolution to dispose of the free roaming dog results in his taking it in as his own, and an unprecedented tragedy with the Lazar family motivates him to share a weird, recurring dream he keeps experiencing about a funeral attended by a woman he is able to name but no one seems to know.

Certainly, Domestic is the most stylistically assured of Sitaru’s filmography, abandoning the p.o.v. shots that ran rampant in Hooked and felt out of place in the otherwise assured Best Intentions. For each family (comprised of many returning cast members from Sitaru’s previous titles), we receive a marvelous single take sequence where the camera rests in one spot as we watch the family interact, generally in the kitchen with the bathroom providing a layered depth, and, in the first storyline, the film’s most entertaining moment.

Social commentary about acceptable roles and relations of the domestic animal in the human living environment now that Romania is included in the European Union results in some rather pointed but minor commentary, but Domestic can’t quite escape feeling like more of slight comedy, even in the face of dire tragedy.

Each family faces a situation specific to the type of animal that’s been accepted into their environment, i.e., the ire of the neighbors toward a dog, a child’s upset at the consumption of rabbit and his parents’ resistance at allowing a wounded pigeon into the home, and a cat who’s blamed as the cause of not only a tragic death, but subsequently a sacred remembrance of a lost one.

Divided into two sections, “Domestic Life” and “Domestic Death,” its most memorable sequence transpires quite early on and Sitaru never quite reaches this zenith again, particularly in a dwindling second half which feels incredibly lackluster in comparison. Interesting conversations abound, most notably a conversation where an atheist father spouts his thoughts over a holiday meal concerning his theories on Jesus being a visitor from the future since time travel is the next technological advancement. While inevitably the film is not as

rewarding as Best Intentions, Sitaru, reteaming with DP Adrian Silisteanu, has made his best looking film, to date.

Reviewed on December 3, 2013 for the 8th edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema at the Film Society of Lincoln Center ★★ 1/2 http://www.ioncinema.com/reviews/domestic-review

DOMESTIC: MAKING WAVES AT LINCOLN CENTER

by Courtney Marquard November 27th, 2013 Domestic, which screened this year as part of the 2013 Summer Series, is the third feature film from Romanian director Adrian Sitaru. As a part of the 2013 Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema Series, the film will be showing at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater onTuesday December 3rd.

Taking place in one apartment complex, Sitaru allows us to peek into the personal lives of three men, their families and pets. As Mr. Lazar, Mr. Mihaes, and Toni’s stories unfold, they weave together creating a broader story that questions life’s cycle. Relationships develop, fall apart, and re-kindle right before us with wide, long takes that make you feel as if you are eavesdropping through the doorway or from the corner of the room. This intimate tone gives each character an instant familiarity. Whether they are knit picking at one another, interpreting a dream, or seeking a comfort that might have been lost, there are pieces of our own families in each of them.

The film features a rabbit, a hen, a cat, a dog, and a pigeon. As each animal finds their way into a home, and into a family, the characters adapt to these domesticated animals in a variety of ways. While some are killed for food, other animals are cherished by children. Ultimately, the animals are sources for new realizations in each family.

“I wanted a simple, funny and touching film altogether. Inspired largely from childhood, the film is based on a few stories with domestic animals (and not only), children and parents. These are stories in which, from what I’ve seen, many people not only in Romania, find themselves. They are universal stories, in which the children, the animals and the adults come to interact accidentally, but the destinies, both of the people and of the animals, are intertwined, influence each other and are irreversibly changed� - Adrian Sitaru.

Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013 Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater Tuesday December 3, 2013 8:30PM Buy Tickets

http://rooftopfilms.com/blog/2013/11/domestic-making-waves-at-lincolncenter.html

December 3, 2013

Cast: Luminita Gheorghiu, Bogdan Dumitrache, Natasa Raab Director: Calin Peter Netzer Country: Romania Genre: Drama Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

The inimitable Luminita Gheorghiu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) is undeniably illuminating in Child’s Pose (2013), an emotionally entrenching effort of Romanian social realism. When her son is involved in an incident which leaves a child dead,

Cornelia does whatever it takes to personally intervene and control the consequences of the dire circumstance. Willing to lie, bribe, and threaten those able to help her son’s situation, this bourgeoisie mother with a serious God-complex endeavors to appease her foreseen enemies—the cops, the witness, the family—in order to maintain the dysfunctional relationship she carries on with her son. Her son, recognizing her hypocrisy and efforts to control him his whole life, rejects her phony affection, seeing that it is herself that she wishes to serve, not her son, nor anyone else.

[Netzer] zooms in on actions to keep the figures centralized, and closes up on faces in the most heartbreaking of moments: the camera is brave and, in long takes, attempts to capture each moment.

From the first scene, a documentary tone is set by the hand camera movement. While this technique is irksome to begin with and becomes tiresome throughout the film, the viewers might eventually immerse themselves in the film enough that the hand camera movements are only registered on an unconscious level. Otherwise, the unstill image and regular zooms can be quite distracting. Nevertheless, Netzer chooses to shoot the film in this manner, allowing the camera to observe and even scrutinize—through zooming—the situation with unabated access. He zooms in on actions to keep the figures centralized, and closes up on faces in the most heartbreaking of moments: the camera is brave and, in long takes, attempts to capture each moment.

While the film begins rather inefficiently, with tiringly long scenes of nothing much interesting, Child’s Pose picks up the pace and gains a riveting story dynamic once the son has entered the picture. It’s clear that the initial scenes are simply there to display Cornelia’s lifestyle—one of luxury and posturing, keeping people at arm’s length by getting close to them. These early scenes too maintain a presence of music, which plays an integral part in the film. Figuring in much of the early scenes, music serves to pull one out of the seriousness of life and back into the escapist wonderland that these bourgeoisie are portrayed in. Wearing their fur coats and demanding this and that from those they deem below them, Cornelia is the epitome of this class of people, a class that expects things and usually gets them. Her husband even calls her ‘controlia’.

In contrast, Barbu (Bogdan Dumitrache) antagonizes his mother by not being like her. He sees her flaws, and attempts to evade her sharp demeanor. Though she complains about his behavior, we see that she is actually quite hypocritical, and, perhaps due to genetics, Barbu is quite hypocritical as well. Though he shows remorse for the dead child on his hands, he is reprehensibly unwilling to do anything to remedy the situation. He tells his mother to leave things to him, but he is still under her thumb. Like his father, he is “putty in her hands”.

While the acting, cinematography, and story development is rather forgettable for the first three quarters of the film, the final scenes are exciting, riveting, and moving to no end.

Corruption is displayed in many forms within the film. The mother seems to see that the ends justify the means, and will do whatever it takes to save her son from prison. The cops too are willing to be flexible with statements, provided that favours are granted to them. Finally, the witness is more the willing to take a bribe in return for a retraction of his statement which condemns Barbu for speeding. It seems that nobody really cares or fully grasps the fact that a child is dead, and this matters more than their superficial or bureaucratic goals. The truth is suppressed; it is unimportant and left undealt with until the end when mother and son must face the reality of what has happened.

While the acting, cinematography, and story development is rather forgettable for the first three quarters of the film, the final scenes are exciting, riveting, and moving to no end. In an incredible monologue that should promote Luminita Gheorghiu for an Oscar nomination, Cornelia exclaims her unashamed and unrestricted feelings towards her son.

In long takes, the camera watches her breakdown, attempt to pick herself back up, and breakdown again. Sounds enter from offscreen, the family of the deceased boy are watching her. In the last scene, once back in the car with her son, Barbu exits to finally speak to the father of the boy. With the dialogue kept from the viewer, the camera watches Barbu and the man through the back mirror of the car. Emphasizing Cornelia, the handheld camera pans to the right in order to cross her expression and capture the men through the driver’s side-mirror: they are shaking hands. Netzer retraces these steps to show Barbu once more, as he returns to the car. In a lasting frame of Cornelia, now composed, she ignites the car—leaving one final thought: was it all an act?

December 3, 2013

Cast: Bogdan Dumitrache, Diana Avrămuţ, Mihaela Sîrbu Director: Corneliu Porumboiu Country: Romania | France Genre: Drama Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

“When filming, you put what interests you in the centre, not on the margin.” So says a doctor surveying the endoscopy DVD of a deathly serious director whose alleged illness is nought more than one part of a ploy to rehearse in-depth and out of clothes with an attractive actress. Corneliu Porumboiu has always put what interests him in the centre: here in When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, that’s cinema itself, via a selfreferential movie that’s at much about formalism as it is characterised by it. Indeed the film’s opening shot, one of its impressively few seventeen, sees this director, Paul, framed in silhouette as he drives through the night expounding theories of the limitations of celluloid. It’s not only for the windshield that we can see he’s looking at the world through a screen.

Corneliu Porumboiu has always put what interests him in the centre: here in When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, that’s cinema itself, via a self-referential movie that’s at much about formalism as it is characterised by it.

Ditto Porumboiu, whose movies have rendered cinematic the pain of the past and the difficulty in defining oneself against the wider world, using film as a tool to forge futures both personal and political. It’s little surprise, given how much of his function to date has been consigned to form, that he should come to address that form directly. The conversations that unfold across this bare narrative address the ideas of a cinema—and thus a world viewed through it—that’s changing under the auspices of digital technology.

“Movies will be something else,” says Paul of the future; like a purist persisting in the notion that “film” ought not to refer to anything other than its celluloid namesake, he clings to convention as though afraid of falling if he dares let go.

“I’ve been formed by this limit,” he says in the opening scene, explaining how the shot length celluloid imposes encourages the kind of exhaustive planning he implements, and which Porumboiu implements too. The links between the directors are many; much as Paul may be lampooned for his aesthetic elitism, there’s a certain sympathy evident in his characterisation. If not aligning himself precisely with his protagonist—he more often feels like an image of the director his detractors might design—Porumboiu at least understands him and his essential struggle. He’s not unlike Police, Adjective’s Cristi, in a way: defined by his conviction, compelled to follow his heart, and yet fraught by fears of his own inability to address the imbalance between his vision of the world and reality.

There’s a scene where Paul extols the importance of emoting by implication in the simplest of gestures that culminates in the aggressive application of a lint roller; it’s at once emblematic of Porumboiu’s delectably dry humour and a strangely sad sign of just how entrenched these characters each are in their own way of envisioning existence through images, to the exclusion of the other’s.

That’s a trouble attested above all in his conflation of actress and role: his obsession with first-timer Alina, ostensibly an effort to build character, is the crux of the film, both in its entanglement of process and product and the way it evidences his sense of cinematic superiority. There’s a scene where Paul extols the importance of emoting by implication in the simplest of gestures that culminates in the aggressive application of a lint roller; it’s at once emblematic of Porumboiu’s delectably dry humour and a strangely sad sign of just how entrenched these characters each are in their own way of envisioning existence through images, to the exclusion of the other’s. As Maria Raducanu sings in the song from which the film takes its title, or at least the former half: “I’m looking at you but I can see that you’re not”.

“A way of seeing, or rather of thinking, the world” is how Paul describes his relationship to cinema, and it’s evident that that’s indicative of Porumboiu’s too. His films have always been methodical, planned to perfection, defined by discursive dialogue, and yet immeasurably incisive for it all; his is a cinema that, by thinking it through, comes to see the world in striking new ways. In When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism he identifies, if not precisely with his protagonist, then with the problems that plague him: it would be imprudent to claim the endoscopy that provides the penultimate shot of the film is evidence of the director leaning excessively insular, and yet that’s precisely the point, in a peculiar way. In the past, Porumboiu’s comedy has lent a whole country catharsis.

Here, the purview’s purely personal: the title’s latter half, to deploy the derivations in which this director so delights, might mean to throw away. If 12:08 East of Bucharest and Police, Adjective were Porumboiu seeking Romania’s future by surveying its past, Metabolism is him doing the same for himself.

December 3, 2013

Cast: Adrian Titieni, Gheorghe Ifrim, Ioana Flora Director: Adrian Sitaru Country: Romania Genre: Comedy | Drama Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

Romanian dark-comedy Domestic is a film about how animals can enrich and disrupt family life, leading to arguments and moments of tenderness. The film is split into two sections entitled Part 1 – Domestic Death, and Part 2 – Domestic Life.

The first half presents us with a handful of long improvised scenes of a number of Romanian families who live in a block of flats. The first is the tenants stood around with the building supervisor complaining about one of the neighbour’s out of control dog; another is a scene where a father and daughter argue about who should kill a live hen that the wife/mother has brought home; another scene is a drunk father presenting his son with a rabbit that his intention it to fatten up and eat, yet his son thinks it is a gift. Each of the scenes revolves around the position of animals in our lives and how they affect our emotions. In the second half, we return to the characters after an implied tragedy that everyone in the building is trying to deal with.

It is hard to believe that the film had a complete script as there is so much dialogue and some of the scenes are 9 minutes long filmed in a single take. This voyeuristic approach will alienate some viewers, but will hypnotize others.

It is hard to believe that the film had a complete script as there is so much dialogue and some of the scenes are 9 minutes long filmed in a single take. This voyeuristic approach will alienate some viewers, but will hypnotize others – it is just a shame that the subtitles are done badly as a lot of the dialogue is missed.

Due to the spontaneity of the dialogue, there are a lot of funny moments that arise from typical inter-family small talk. In one scene, one of the fathers is convinced that Jesus was sent from the future by an alien race (“God is us, sent from the future”), and yet in another he tries to convince his friends that Jesus was ‘obviously’ Romanian. Another result of the naturalistic filmmaking is the celebration of the minutiae of family life that is normally edited out: for example a father watching his son playing a video game for a few minutes, or a discussion about recipes around a dinner table. These moments are intriguing, but again will not appeal to a ‘mainstream’ audience.

The emphasis on animals is not trying to make an overt political point, in fact the animals look particularly unhappy at points during the filming (keep your eye on the rabbit), but it does highlight the absurdity of the domestication of pets.

December 3, 2013

Cast: Carmen Anton, Andrei Juvina Director: Tom Wilson Country: Romania Genre: Documentary | Drama Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

Any devotee of contemporary Romanian cinema will point you to the prominent distinction between two strands in the country’s filmic output. There are those realisminclined movies concerned with issues facing the nation now, and there is the plethora of pictures that—like in any country relieved of a regime that oppressed free speech— retrospectively deal with the problems of the past. But then, of course, there is the handful of exceptions: the films that concern themselves directly with the point of the 1989 revolution that overthrew Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule and take sight of the country right at the point of historical change. From 12:08 East of Bucharest’s hilariously lampooning of the underlying politics to The Paper Will Be Blue’s military perspective on the paradigm shift to How I Celebrated the End of the World’s child’s-eye view, the revolution has found its share of screen representation.

It’s an immensely difficult line to straddle, which makes all the more impressive Wilson’s determined refusal to reveal his hand as the “narrative” progresses, leaving

us clueless as to the truth of this tale and thus made to ponder its potential unreality and, by implication, the absurdity of the fact that some of the more surprising things the interviewees claim could be true.

The Bucuresti Experiment joins this restricted subset of cinema with its own documentary take on the point of change and the interim split in Romanian society. Directed by Englishman Tom Wilson, its ostensible focus is the eponymous experiment, which—as more details of its nature come to be revealed—exposes frightening truths on the sinister background to the revolution. More important, perhaps, is its focus on the decadesdormant relationship between one organiser of the experiment and his partner of the time, whose conflicting reports of the period and divergent paths since are Wilson’s primary means of exploring his issues. But then comes a point, about thirty minutes into the film, where one interviewee seems oddly audacious, almost as though this were an actor in a role. Here, Wilson sows the seed of doubt, this offhand gesture to the potential fictionality of the story he tells casting everything we have learned—and all we subsequently learn—in the shadow of doubt.

Currently continuing to work the style better than any other, this time on TV in the form of HBO’s Family Tree, Christopher Guest stands as the definitive high water mark for mockumentary, his brilliant utilisation of its implications of realism a perfect exemplar of its ability to capture plausible absurdity. It’s an immensely difficult line to straddle, which makes all the more impressive Wilson’s determined refusal to reveal his hand as the “narrative” progresses, leaving us clueless as to the truth of this tale and thus made to ponder its potential unreality and, by implication, the absurdity of the fact that some of the more surprising things the interviewees claim could be true. It’s a savvy political statement, using this aesthetic to demonstrate the stranger-than-fiction behind-the-scenes reality of Romanian politics; or rather, that’s the intent with which Wilson deploys it.

If it’s pitched in jest, deadpan comedy used to highlight the patent absurdity of all that went on in the country at this time, it’s simply not funny enough: this is wit so dry it chafes. If it’s as serious as it seems, and the experiments it postulates indeed took place, it’s nothing shocking enough to warrant such an exposé; knowing what we do

about the crimes of Ceaușescu and his regime, those claimed herein seem positively mundane by contrast.

The reality, sadly, is that neither this director nor his film can quite manage to channel the potential of this idea to anything existing beyond a purely conceptual stage. Its effect hinging on our inability to discern fact from fiction, The Bucresti Experiment hasn’t the stakes to support its weighty intentions. If it’s pitched in jest, deadpan comedy used to highlight the patent absurdity of all that went on in the country at this time, it’s simply not funny enough: this is wit so dry it chafes. If it’s as serious as it seems, and the experiments it postulates indeed took place, it’s nothing shocking enough to warrant such an exposé; knowing what we do about the crimes of Ceaușescu and his regime, those claimed herein seem positively mundane by contrast. This is a film that smartly plays narrative and documentary against one another to blur the lines between; it appears to have forgotten, along the way, to find a good reason for doing so.

It would be imprudent to reveal the reality of The Bucuresti Experiment, predicated as the film’s effect is on withholding that information until the very last minute. It’s indicative of its manifest problems, though, that when the revelation is followed by a full immersion in the true style—be it comedy or documentary—that the movie spirals out of control with frightening, dangerous speed. There’s a fine feature idea hiding here within the framework Wilson erects, but he hasn’t the wit or wisdom to bring it to fruition. It’s ever more a mere concept than it is a movie at all, courtesy of a positively disastrous execution: a word more apt than ever it should be.

December 1, 2013

Director: Laura Capatana-Juller Country: Romania Genre: Documentary Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

Here…I Mean There (2012) is a most unusual documentary. It does not address a global concern like climate change, poverty or hunger nor does it address abuse or neglect. It focuses on a family in rural Romania and what they are doing to earn money. Ani and Sanda were very young, about 8 and 4 respectively, when their parents decided to leave Romania and work in Spain so they could earn enough to build a large house and they could all live together. They left their children to live with one set of grandparents and off they went. Apparently this is common for families to do in Romania because wages are so low there and Spain seems to be the destination of preference for Romanians. Well, ten years later the house is being built but is nowhere near finished or even livable. The parents come back when they can and the father works on it, but it’s only for small stretches at a time.

There are things missing that I would have liked to know and would have pained a better picture of why the situation is as it is.

The main focus of the film is on the two girls. They get along better than any siblings I’ve seen in my life. They are teenagers but they spend a great deal of time together, and not just because they share a room. Ani has a boyfriend, but that doesn’t seem to take her out of the house that often. They clean their room, speak to their parents on the phone and via video-chat and kind of live out this life of separation from their parents together.

It’s tough to know if that’s exactly how they always are, since the film is only 75 minutes long and took 3 years to film. That tells me that there is a great deal that was left on the cutting room floor, but I get the sense it’s there because it doesn’t service the core narrative. There are no extras here. There are great leaps in time, four months here, two there that condense the story into a neatly compact film. The two months that the girls are in Spain for the summer are gone, and we find the parents back in Romania and Sanda stating that she had a fine holiday in a 7-star hospital in Spain but we are never treated to what happened to her.

There are things missing that I would have liked to know and would have pained a better picture of why the situation is as it is. I would have liked to know what kind of work the parents were doing in Spain, something that is never explicitly told but alluded to when the father is showing pictures of his last job on his phone and states it was a pub in a guy’s house. It led me to conclude that they are working in the service industry (the mother mentions ‘her mistress’ so she may be some kind of domestic), but we never know and that leaves some information blank on why the house is taking so long to complete. They send packages filled with trinkets and clothes that the grandmother insists aren’t needed (they aren’t really struggling, they always seem to have enough food

and don’t go wanting for new clothes, they have internet and cell phones and all the modern conveniences) instead of saving the money to put into the house. The parents struck me as kind of frivolous and not really all that intent on returning to Romania permanently. They take their girls out shopping when then come back, but always refer to Spain as home.

That was the tell for me. I began to feel like since the arrangement had gone on for so long and now one of their daughters was 18 (Ani celebrates her 18th birthday during the filming and her parents do come back for her birthday and her party) and out of their legal concern, and Sanda only has four more years and she will also be 18. Right at the end of the film, Sanda breaks down and confesses that she does not believe her parents will ever come back to Romania to stay and make their family whole. She thinks her life would be completely different if they were there, but she does not think it will ever happen. Then she says something that is more mature than anything I’ve ever heard out of someone so young: “Everybody is running after money, as if it’s something special.”

Minor quibbles aside, like the want for more information and perhaps a bit longer of a film, Here…I Mean There (2012) is a deeply felt film.

First-time director Laura Capatana-Juller has crafted something special with Here…I Mean There. Much like an investigative reporter entrenching themselves with a military unit, she entrenched herself with this family for three years, collecting footage and crafting their story for her first film. It fascinates me that she even found this family, let alone that they agreed to have their lives filmed for three years. I think this film is important for Romanians since this situation apparently is very common, but more than that, it’s important to filmmakers because it shows how to make a film of deep emotional content without any added distraction of a larger scope. We are with these people through some rough emotional times, but at no point to we feel sorry for, say their living conditions or something. Their situation isn’t something that would ordinarily be known outside of Romania, but because of her film it is. I feel bad for the girls because they have had to grow up without their parents, but not in any kind of traditional abandonment. They were abandoned in favor of a dream, one that I don’t really know if the parents even have anymore. They seem to have left Romania behind, but are still anchored there by their children. After Sanda turns 18 and goes to college or lives on her own, there will really be little to no motivation to even promise to return, and I fear that is what will happen.

Minor quibbles aside, like the want for more information and perhaps a bit longer of a film, Here…I Mean There (2012) is a deeply felt film. Capatana-Juller does not hold anything back on screen, but may have by what she left off screen. There is definite potential for a more rounded film, instead of this short burst we have now. If it were a bit longer and filled in some of the information gaps, it would have been more fulfilling and would have yielded something spectacular. As it stands, it’s a brief but intimate portrait of a family split up by circumstances that may never be put back together.

December 1, 2013

Cast: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Ion Stoica Director: Corneliu Porumboiu Country: Romania Genre: Comedy | Crime | Drama Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

“Dialectics, that’s what it’s called,” professes the pedantic chief whose penchant for dictionary definition lends Police, Adjective its name. “Do you know what that means?”

He says it as though it were simple. Meaning and its malleability is central to Corneliu Porumboiu’s second feature, a film that at first glance—with its foregrounded formalist concerns and sustained sequences of silence—might seem the distinct directorial answer to the “screenplay movie” that was 12:08 East of Bucharest. But to label either movie as indulging one of Porumboiu’s roles above the other is as to ignore one definition of a word in favour of another: he is a filmmaker, and this a film, that functions as the synthesis of several elements all at once.

Meaning and its malleability is central to Corneliu Porumboiu’s second feature, a film that at first glance—with its foregrounded formalist concerns and sustained sequences of silence—might seem the distinct directorial answer to the “screenplay movie” that was 12:08 East of Bucharest.

The chief speaks of dialectics, of course, in the Socratic sense, seeking to extend to the point of absurdity the conscientious contentions of Cristi, his detective, whose disinclination to prosecute a cannabis-smoking teenager is the source of the film’s drama.

He, Cristi—albeit unknowingly—invokes instead Hegel, his desperate desire to reconcile his own opinions with the word of the law contributing the integral tension to this textbook exercise in narrative minimalism. It’s a movie many might find meandering, its subversive take on the police procedural making for surveillance scenes whose lack of action works to return realism to a genre that’s rarely relied on it. But, as a character quips at one point, “I said I was waiting, not that there was nothing up”. These inherently voyeuristic visualisations aren’t only amusingly empty answers to mainstream movies’ equivalent scenes; they pleasingly play with perspective too: were we with Hitchcock, Haneke even, we might see things through someone’s eyes. That we observe the observer, additionally, introduces another area of interest altogether.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a sentiment these scenes invite, and around which the film itself eventually comes to revolve. Never allowing our perspective to align with that of his presumed protagonist, Porumboiu’s open ethical questions make us the mediators, caught between Crist’s valid points and his superiors’. There’s a scene mid-way through the movie wherein he and his wife debate the meanings of a pop song: Porumboiu plays it—and us—perfectly, first letting us hear the words, and then making us listen. It’s emblematic of the movie at large, and how it takes the same approach to the law and our absent acceptance of it and those who enforce it. “You’re not qualified to comment on the law,” he’s coldly told in an early scene. Should we need to be?

It’s equally the impact of Dragoş Bucur’s hunched, huffing delivery as it is the dour lines themselves that lend him the airs of a film noir protagonist in the making: see how he seems almost embarrassed to speak of his conscience, how—most notably in an

early meeting, chronicled in a single six minute shot—he struggles to meet the eye of his challenger.

Obsessed as it is with philosophy and semantics, it might be easy to mistake Police, Adjective for austere intellectualism; Porumboiu’s genius, though, is in rendering text as subtext. The meaning emerges as though incidental from the material, subject arising from story as though it were something conceived of as more than merely a means to an ideological end. Cristi exists as a character first, a cipher second. It’s equally the impact of Dragoş Bucur’s hunched, huffing delivery as it is the dour lines themselves that lend him the airs of a film noir protagonist in the making: see how he seems almost embarrassed to speak of his conscience, how—most notably in an early meeting, chronicled in a single six minute shot—he struggles to meet the eye of his challenger.

Here is a man standing tall for what he believes in, being made to feel little for doing so.

Never is that more agonisingly apparent than in the extraordinary eighteen minute unbroken take where he finally meets the chief he’s been avoiding, after being made to wait with the secretary like a misbehaved schoolchild sent to the headmaster. “Are you sick?” he’s asked with mock concern as he explains his issues with the command to condemn a kid to three and a half years in jail for smoking a joint. “Don’t you know the meanings of the words you use?” Dialectics, of course, as the chief might find if he ordered Cristi to look it up as he does with so many other words in that awfully awkward scene, was appropriated by Marx in the theories on which Ceausescu built his Romanian regime. Police, Adjective, in the end, isn’t so much absorbed with meanings as it is with the peril of ignoring the inconvenient ones.

http://hunterword.com/articles/2246 http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmovies/article/Film-Society-of-Lincoln-Center-AnnouncesMAKING-WAVES-New-Romanian-Cinema-Line-Up-20131028

November 30, 2013

Cast: Dorian Boguta, Dragos Bucur, Eugen Lumezianu Director: Iulia Rugina Country: Romania Genre: Comedy Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

Thirteen couples and one single female converge at a remote camp designed to help them get perspective on, and potentially to strengthen, their relationships. The camp is run by three young men, all of whom are wrestling with their own issues. There’s Silviu (Dragos Bucur), the group’s obvious Lothario who isn’t sure he believes love or relationships are supposed to last a lifetime. Valentin (Dorian Boguta) has just learned his significant other, Monica, has slept with her cousin. And Cristian (Alexandru Papadopol) is so asexual that even he doesn’t know what he’s into.

Over the course of six days, the group is challenged in various ways. Although all exercises are somewhat novel from an outsider’s perspective, none is more intimate and telling than the first kiss exercise, during which Cristian guides the group through the experience by having them remember what it was like to kiss their respective partners for the first time. It’s an intimate and lovely moment in a film otherwise stippled with fights, disappointment, and three-legged races. There is something very powerful about seeing so many people kissing simultaneously in a single shot.

It feels as though the filmmakers have done what they could to be inclusive. After all, with such a huge assortment of characters, Love Building wants you to relate to someone.

That there is such a large cast is both hilarious and vaguely bothersome. At first, I found myself wanting to keep up with all of the subplots and characters. The film, however, felt garbled as a result. I told myself it was okay not to remember everything about every couple. After all, the film is mostly about the three men who run the workshop. This feeling of confusion and of being slightly overwhelmed is a terrific way to immerse the audience into the lives of the counselors. The main thing to note is that this camp is utilized by all sorts of different people from different socio-economic backgrounds and sexualities, which is the aspect I most like about Love Building. It feels as though the filmmakers have done what they could to be inclusive. After all, with such a huge assortment of characters, Love Building wants you to relate to someone.

Crafted with a slight documentary-style feel, Love Building has a subtle comedic element to it. When Valentin learns his significant other has cheated on him, he begins stalking her Facebook page until, at last, she updates her status to “single” and he comes unhinged. While little moments like these are sprinkled throughout, and are sure to get a modest chuckle from most of its audience, know that Love Building is built on exposing conflict.

In an exercise designed to enable couples to share their secrets with their partners, many come away with cuts and bruises. Sure, it feels like a rather heavy-handed allegory of how we hurt one another when we keep things to ourselves, but in the moments that follow, the camp attendees are invited to take their frustrations out on a punching bag.

The filmmakers do a solid job of representing the anger and hurt everyone feels —even those who have just finished confessing to their adulterous ways. As each member of the cast lines up and takes their turn at the bag, it’s easy to see how anyone in any relationship can begin to feel as though they are not being heard, that they’re not getting what they need, and how—even over a period of a few months—a relationship can fall apart as a result.

I enjoyed the mild repartee between the camp’s counselors but felt there was too much going on to allow its audience to develop any emotional attachment to the story or characters. Even though couples are throwing punches at one another and counselors are sleeping with clients, I wonder if the audience will care.

Dragos Bucur is charming in the role of Silviu, onto which he projects a light-hearted warmth that helps carry the film. Supported by Dorian Boguta in the role of Valentin, the two share an onscreen chemistry that falls just short of a full on bromance. After all, it’s clear that Silviu wants to be seen as the alpha male of the group, the one who can’t be bothered with an antiquated concept of love that lasts forever, a fact made all the most humorous when his ex-girlfriend of three years shows up at the camp with her lover, a married man.

I liked Love Building, but for none of the reasons I thought I would. I enjoyed the mild repartee between the camp’s counselors but felt there was too much going on to allow its audience to develop any emotional attachment to the story or characters. Even though couples are throwing punches at one another and counselors are sleeping with clients, I wonder if the audience will care. In drama, as in horror, the audience’s emotional attachment is pivotal to the success of the story. What transpires in Love Building‘s lean 85 minutes is an exposition on whether love can be “fixed” in a week. And while I applaud the filmmakers’ attempts to create an inclusive film, none of the relationships feel as though they are examined with any sort of depth. In short, I wanted more.

November 29, 2013

Cast: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Sapdaru Director: Corneliu Porumboiu Country: Romania Genre: Comedy | Drama Official Trailer: Here Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

Was There or Wasn’t There? is perhaps the most apt Anglicisation of the original title of Corneliu Porumboiu’s feature debut 12:08 East of Bucharest, a name that better suggests the sense of wearied frustration that fills the film. There’s a desperation of sorts to the question, asked time and time again in the film as a small-town TV host attempts to gleam from his guests whether the historic Romanian revolution of 1989 manifested itself in their home. Congealing the stylistic and thematic tendencies experimented with in his earlier shorts, Porumboiu here rode the crest of the Romanian New Wave—to deploy the obligatory aquatic pun—and arrived on the scene of European cinema as one of its most exciting new auteurs.

Porumboiu, at least at first, largely takes his own advice and here adopts the rigid framing for which he’s since become known. He favours frames within the frame:

darkened doorways serve to doubly situate these characters within their space, much as his narrative will serve to do contextually

Earning the Camera d’Or award at Cannes for best first feature, Porumboiu builds on the prominent craftsmanship of his first works with a sense of confidence that’s nothing short of stunning to behold. Here is a film entirely aware of everything it intends to do, running like a well-oiled machine from first frame to last. To compare it to a well-structured debate is to do a disservice to its success as a cinematic work, yet it’s an apt link to make: this is the kind of movie that moves with clarity and precision—which isn’t to say that it’s at all speedy—to arrive at a destination that, though perhaps unexpected, reveals itself on arrival to be the only place we could possibly have been headed.

Therein lies the wonder of Porumboiu, a director with the ability to take the viewer by the hand and lead them firmly down his pre-planned path. “Put it on the tripod now, or I’ll crack your skull with it,” snaps the presenter when he catches his cameraman daring to use handheld shots; Porumboiu, at least at first, largely takes his own advice and here adopts the rigid framing for which he’s since become known. He favours frames within the frame: darkened doorways serve to doubly situate these characters within their space, much as his narrative will serve to do contextually: he uses aesthetic almost as outline, tracing the trajectory of his story in the simple way he shoots his players.

Like his shorts, in which alternating attitudes to the revolution of ’89 create a generational rift, 12:08 East of Bucharest finds Porumboiu eyeing the new Romania with equal parts amusement and outrage.

And what wonderful players they are: back from the shorts are Ion Sapdaru and Constantin Dita, the latter taking a small but eventually essential role, the former delightfully dour as one of the two key guests out of whom the TV host hopes to squeeze an infotaining hour. He fails phenomenally: the broadcast is an unmitigated disaster, bad news for his burgeoning career but excellent indeed for us as witnesses to Porumboiu’s comedy, which cheekily and often caustically deconstructs popular attitudes to the revolution with this sketch that’s stretched to audacious length. That it works at all is indicative of exquisite writing; that it does for so long, as well as indicating the quality of these actors, accentuates just how fine a director he is.

Like his shorts, in which alternating attitudes to the revolution of ’89 create a generational rift, 12:08 East of Bucharest finds Porumboiu eyeing the new Romania with equal parts amusement and outrage. “My point is that there’s no present without a past, and no future without a present,” stutters the presenter in a moment meant to make him look foolish, yet there’s truth to the words, and Porumboiu’s essential concern is in understanding this place and these people as products, often pathetic ones, in an everevolving historical timeline. “Nobody gives a shit about it anyway,” shrugs a character at one point, his opinion evidently shared by a class of kids who’d sooner take a test on the French revolution. Yet a throwaway reference to Plato’s cave is telling, and Porumboiu evidently seeks—in the most unassuming way—to cast himself in the role of the philosopher. His unaffected epilogue is an appropriate embrace of the democracy Ceausescu left in his wake: there’s plenty to learn here, for those who give a shit.

November 29, 2013

Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, which runs from November 29th to December 3rd. For more information visit FilmLinc.com and follow FilmLinc on Twitter at @FilmLinc.

“And as the priest says, if you take life seriously you can’t fail.”

“But life, as Andreea Marin says, is full of surprises.”

This exchange from the 2002 short Gone with the Wine, between a hopeful young Romanian on his way to a new job on an English oil rig and an old alcoholic emblematic of the country he hopes to leave behind, could hardly offer a more apt attitude on which to begin director Corneliu Porumboiu’s career, which undergoes a complete retrospective as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual Making Waves Romanian Film Festival this weekend. Meeting the straight-faced spiritual sentiment of the youngster with a catchphrase culled from a TV gameshow, this drunkard is a lot like Porumboiu himself, cocking a wry smile as he cuts to the heart of Romanian life with ease.

Film fans will be familiar with his features; the true pleasure of this series is the rare chance to see his shorts, a tightly-woven trio that act equally as a sustained statement of intent and an insight into the early evolution of an essential artist. I’ve argued otherwhere for Porumboiu as the ultimate exemplar of the Romanian New Wave’s discovery of

catharsis through comedy: in these early films, we see the seeds of that catharsis sown via a series of stories that grapple with the heavy legacy of the country’s political past. The common thread is Constantin Dita, an affable young actor who stars in Gone with the Wine and A Trip to the City and features prominently in Liviu’s Dream; the fact that he doesn’t play the same character each time is less important than the reality that he easily could, such is the representational quality of the young generation and their lacking prospects as Porumboiu envisages them. …the true pleasure of this series is the rare chance to see his shorts, a tightly-woven trio that act equally as a sustained statement of intent and an insight into the early evolution of an essential artist.

The excess of alcohol is telling: Gone with the Wine’s opening shot, steadily framed in a manner that will come to be characteristic of this new director, delights in the sound of drunkards, their nonsensical ramblings unfolding off-screen while we patiently wait for one to gradually wander into our view. “Be a man, come drink with us,” they later tell Dita’s character as he prepares to leave for the oil rig job, betraying the basic role of booze in this back-of-beyond community. “He remembered his old dream only when he was sodden,” bemoans the eponymous protagonist of Liviu’s Dream of his father’s oppressed existence under Ceausescu’s regime, though even here in these early works Porumboiu is keen to shy away from suggesting the new Romania is by default better than its Communist counterpart. Slyly similar stories of drunken mayors pre- and postrevolution across the first and second films of this thematic trilogy point to a permanently pissed patriarchy, regardless of their political perspectives.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek approach with which these comparisons are drawn; quick as he is to reveal the new Romania as in imperfect entity, Porumboiu appreciates the enormity of the scars the nation bears. Indeed, his heroes are hounded by the tension between being the future their forebears deserve and escaping the cycle the past perpetuates. Gone with

the Wine and A Trip to the City each conclude on an entertaining note, though as their scores linger on into the credits there’s a bittersweet touch, the characters scarcely better off than when they started. That frustration festers through the films; each released a year after the last, they feel fundamentally fraught with this burden, which manifests itself most prominently in their relationship to their parents. Dita sighs sorely when seeing his mother following him to the bus in Gone with the Wine. By the time of Liviu’s Dream, the young character is throwing money at his father asking why he hasn’t provided it himself. In the first film the youth are embarrassed by their elders; by the third they’ve grown embittered.

Blending political drama and comic absurdity without ever batting an eye, splicing silliness and seriousness as though there were no difference between, these early efforts from Porumboiu lay the foundations for the feature work to follow…

“When they realise they haven’t really done anything, they blame it on Ceausescu,” quips Liviu as he gazes over his village from the rooftop where he and his friends, who earn money selling stolen goods, spend their days. As emblematic of the new Romania, they seem equally angry and afraid; Porumboiu, himself a teenager at the time of the revolution, explores the emotions he knows, and their impact is enormous. The third film is the finest, perhaps because it is at once both the bleakest and—somehow—the most optimistic too. The dream to which the title refers awakens Liviu in sweat three times in the course of the movie; the fourth time, we’re made privy, and we understand immediately both the horror and the hope.

“If it’s a bad dream, something good will happen to you,” offers Liviu’s mother early on in the drama. It’s tempting to think she might take the New Romanian Cinema as the country’s own reprieve from its historical nightmare. Poromboiu’s shorts, arriving just before that wave broke and offering an apt advance warning, prove equally true the priest and Andreea Marin: if you take life and all its surprises seriously, you can’t fail. Blending political drama and comic absurdity without ever batting an eye, splicing silliness and

seriousness as though there were no difference between, these early efforts from Porumboiu lay the foundations for the feature work to follow, and the incredible insights those films would offer into a country grappling with its past and present. To see this trio is to see a talent born before the eyes; if the Romanian New Wave was yet to arrive, movies like this were the rising tide. http://nextprojection.com/category/making-waves/

Sunday, December 1 By screenslate

What’s Showing Today? Sunday, December 1 Click venue names for ticket info & directions Featured Screening: Larks on a String at Film Society of Lincoln Center This afternoon, Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013 invites the Czech Republic and Slovakia to participate in its dialog about art and politics with screenings of 1960′s Czechoslovakian films The Sun in a Net and Larks on a String.

The films roughly bookend the informally recognized Czech New Wave period of filmmaking, during which filmmakers, many of which came from Prague’s filmmaking school FAMU, experienced a time of relative liberty to move outside previous boundaries of state-mandated Social Realist art and censorship. Štefan Uher‘s The Sun in a Net, the Slovak FAMU graduate’s second feature, is considered the forerunner of this development. The coming of age film depicts a summer of criss-crossed romances and

self-discovery as a young man’s relationships evoke distinctions between town and country, intellectual and provincial life. Amid the thaw, censors were unsuccessful in banning the film. Jirí Menzel‘s Larks on a String was not as fortunate. A follow-up to his Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains, is a sweet-hearted polemic, an absurdist portrayal of a state reeducation camp set amid a scrapyard. Made during the liberal policies that briefly flourished during the Prague Spring, its release was thwarted by the Soviet Union’s August 1968 invasion, and it went unreleased until 1990, at which time it received resounding critical acclaim.

The Sun in a Net runs at 1:00 pm, and Larks on a String shows at 3:00 pm. Both films screen from 35mm prints. http://www.screenslate.com/whats-showing-today/sunday-december-1

MAKING WAVES — NEW ROMANIAN CINEMA 2013: POLICE, ADJECTIVE

Cristi (Dragos Bucur) is on one helluva boring stakeout in Romanian black comedy POLICE, ADJECTIVE (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2009) Film Society of Lincoln Center Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Francesca Beale Theater 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave. Monday, December 2, 3:00 Series runs November 29 - December 4 212-875-5601 www.filmlinc.com

The first half of Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective is as dreadfully boring as Detective Cristi’s (Dragos Bucur) assignment, tailing a student, Victor (Radu Costin), who enjoys a joint with two of his friends every day after school. While Cristi wants to nail the kid’s supplier, the cop’s boss has him on a tight deadline, insisting he arrest Victor if the investigation continues to go nowhere, but Cristi strongly disagrees with putting the teenager away for up to seven years for a crime he believes will soon be abolished by the government. However, the film picks up considerably as Cristi seeks help from various contacts, getting caught up in red tape and public servants who would really rather not be bothered. And when he get called in by the chief (Vlad Ivanov from 4

Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days) and gets a long lecture in linguistics, well, you won’t be able to control yourself from laughing out loud. Porumboiu keeps the pace very slow and very steady, but hang in there, because the end is a riot. Police, Adjective, which won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, screened at the New York Film Festival and at MoMA as part of the “Contenders, 2009,” series, and was Romania’s official entry for the Foreign Language Film Academy Award, is being shown December 2 at 3:00 at the Francesca Beale Theater as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013,” which runs November 29 to December 3 and consists of works dating from 1962 to 2013 by such directors as Calin Peter Netzer, Nae Caranfil, Tom Wilson, Adrian Sitaru, Laura Capatana-Juller, Dan Pita, and Mircea Veroiul. Also on the schedule are the rest of Porumboiu’s films, including 12:08 East of Bucharest, the shorts trio Liviu’s Dream, A Trip to the City, and Gone with the Wine, and his latest, the closing-night selection When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, which is being presented December 3 at 6:00 and will be followed by a Q&A with the director. http://twi-ny.com/blog/2013/11/28/making-waves-new-romanian-cinema-2013police-adjective/

Link to page here.

Making Waves Romanian film festival kicks off in New York City

By Newsroom Cinema December 05, 2013 15:40 0 comments

The eighth edition of Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema started in New York City and until December 10 the moviegoers can throw themselves in a triple dose of Transylvanian flavor from a popular series of Red Westerns; the complete works of one of The New York Times’ 20 Directors to Watch, Corneliu Porumboiu; Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear award winner Child’s Pose; the World Premiere of Closer to the Moon and many in-person appearances.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Film Initiative are pleased to announce the 8th edition of MAKING WAVES: New Romanian Cinema, which has been hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “the annual weeklong survey that has helped define and establish the southeastern European country as a stronghold of socially incisive, independently minded personal cinema.” The 8th edition of the festival took place at the Film Society of Lincoln Center from November 29 to December 3, 2013. This year the series will expand with a selection of the lineup screening at the Jacob Burns Film Center from December 5-10, and continue the partnership with Transilvania International Film Festival.

The festival offers the best selection of contemporary Romanian filmmaking, including features, documentaries and shorts, along with retrospectives of Romanian filmmakers, special programs, panels and a book launch.

For the second consecutive year, MAKING WAVES is now a fully independent festival of Romanian contemporary cinema and culture, made possible solely through the support of private funders and individual donations, including a large number of Romanian artists who believe that audiences at home and

abroad deserve unfettered access to the best of Romanian contemporary culture. This year’s edition of Making Waves is dedicated to the Save Rosia Montana movement.

Photo courtesy of the Romanian Film Intiative Oana Vasiliu http://business-review.eu/featured/making-waves-romanian-film-festival-kicks-offin-new-york-city/

Black Tie International: On The Town With Aubrey Reuben - November 30, 2013 The opening night of The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema November 29-December 3 was a great success with the screening of Closer to the Moon, by Nae Caranfil, Romania/USA, 2013. The director, producers and two stars of the film, Harry Lloyd and Monica Birladeanu, were present. It is an English language film, based on a true story, about a group of Jews, who rob a bank in 1959, are arrested and, unbelievably, are forced to reenact the event for a propaganda film. Although, it has a tragic ending, the director provides a light touch throughout the film. The acting is superb, and the film is quite enjoyable. The reception featured Romanian specialties and wines, and we were able to talk to the filmmakers, and the wonderful Romanian actress Luminita Gheorghiu, who stars in Child's Pose, winner of the Golden Bear at the 2013 Berlinale, and one of finest films to be shown at this festival.

11-­‐‑30-­‐‑13 (L-­‐‑R) Director Nae Caranfil. producer Renata Rainieri. cast member Harry Lloyd. producer Michael Fitzgerald. cast member Monica Birladeanu all from the opening night film "ʺCloser to the Moon"ʺ at the opening night of "ʺMaking Waves: New Romanian Cinema"ʺ at the Walter Reade Theater. 165 West 65th St. Friday night 11-­‐‑29-­‐‑13 http://blacktiemagazine.com/New_York_Society/Aubrey_Reuben_November3 0_2013.htm

Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013

by Film Society of Lincoln Center | on November 29, 2013 Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema starts tonight! World Premieres, panels + Q&As, the complete works of Corneliu Poruboiu, a Transylvanians Trilogy of Red Westerns, and much more!

Read Full Article: http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/making-waves-new-romanian-cinema2013 http://pagesay.com/making-waves-new-romanian-cinema-2013/

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Drawn Closer to the Moon: The World Premiere of Nae Caranfil’s Film, Featuring Harry Lloyd While Romanian writer and director Nae Caranfil may not have intended for Closer to the Moon(2011/13) to show an alliance with any particular character in the ensemble picture, in various ways, Harry Lloyd’s Virgil, a character whose slight outsider status aligns him with the audience and slight insider role makes him at least partially complicit in crime, steals the show. Yet, it is another kind of “theft” that remains at center in this thought-provoking film of an overlooked story.

The foreign-made film, which currently seeks a distributor and has taken over two years to be shown publicly, made its world, cinematic debut at the Walter Reade Theater (New York, New York) during the Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013 film festival, which is the eighth year the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Film Initiative have collaborated on such a project. It was the first film aired during the festival, whose theme this year is “propaganda,” and certainly got Making Waves off to a rolling start, if the sold-out showing, cramped theatre, and even more packed cocktail reception following the screening are any indication. On hand during a Questions & Answers session following the film were four of the men involved both behind and before the camera, including film-maker Caranfil, actor Lloyd, and American producer Michael Fitzgerald.

Above: Cast and Creative Talent behind Closer to the Moon (2013) at the Making Waves Film Festival, Friday, November 29, 2013. Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter I: The Film Closer to the Moon, while not an intensely difficult-to-follow film, nevertheless tries to achieve much in terms of cinematic spectacle, ambiance, multi-character storylines, and history, each a bit hyperbolized or downplayed, or “tweaked,” in the way of movie magic. In a nutshell, Caranfil’s is a period piece, set in the late 1950s in Bucharest, Romania. In the year post-World War II, anti-Nazism has all but died, and a group of five Jewish professionals, friends since childhood and united by a feeling that fate for them has never been and will never be secure, reunite in their thirties, and turn into revolutionaries, becoming what would later be known as the Ioanid Gang. Of course, it is not just an easy manner of the quintet waking up one day and deciding to rashly rob Romania’s National Bank as a means of making a bold political statement in the antiCommunist country, although there’s certainly much of that ingrained in their decision. (Later, this act became known as the “coup of the century” (“Making Waves”).) While Caranfil could have easily turned this based-upon-true-events film into a more historical-minded portrayal of the actual happenings, he is, as he later told the audience during the post-film Q&A, a “story-teller” and “film-maker” rather than a historian.

Thus, we are treated, in Closer to the Moon, to a story told in interlinking “chapters” whose names flash across the screen to remind us that we are being told a story. Some chapters are named after characters (like Lloyd’s Virgil or Mark Strong’s Max) or main events. We are given a story not of an act but of the lives that converge upon that act— perhaps a drama in multiple mini-acts that lead to one. What is more, we are given tiny glimpses at the lives potentially affected by the events, albeit on the outskirts, yet very much felt by audiences.

What is astounding about Caranfil’s film is that he manages to strip it of any pretentious nostalgia. While the film is relatively sensitive to human nature and personal desires, it is not particularly sentimental. How easy it could have been to go the Stand By Me (1986)esque route—one where a group of older friends flashback to their younger-selves, the intimate story of each unfolding on the screen, revealing each character to have his or her own story, expectations, and reputation. Indeed, each of the five friends involved in the robbery—Vera Farmiga’s Alice (in real-life, Alice is based upon Monica Sevianu—all main figures’ names have been fictionalized), Strong’s aforementioned Max Rosenthal, Joe Armstrong’s Razvan, Christian McKay’s Yorgu, and Tim Plester’s Dumi—has his or her own life aside from the scandal of robbing what would today be the equivalent of a million dollars. But these backstories are viewed in mere glimpses, peppering the film with a flavorful dash of realism that reminds us that these people are human beings with lives, loves, and reputations before they become the center of not just a criminal act but, also, a propaganda film.

Of course, these dashes of realism are necessary. This is Caranfil’s first Englishspeaking film, and while the abundance of English-speaking actors and lack of true Romanians in the story left at least one woman participating in the Q&A following

Friday night’s screening in a half-rage, a viewer must respect Caranfil’s sacrifice of authenticity in hopes that the story will reach a wide audience.

The five nomenklatura—or Communist Party members of high-rank—are scholars, academics, and scientists (and sometimes excellent pugilists, as Armstrong’s Razvan seems forever destined to be the bloodiest member of the gang). Each, in a way, feels trapped or uncertain of his or her future, futures given to each of them in what seems a surreal existence. We see Max’s marriage to the striking Sonia (Monica Barladeanu), the sister of top-cop Damaceanu (Stuart McQuarrie) who is also Max’s boss, as nothing short of relentless tensions, physical abuse, and even her husband’s willingness to put her in prison after she slaps him rather loudly at a New Year’s Party. On this very eve of 1959, Max goes running into the din and dimness of a shabby apartment, where his three aforementioned male friends and a couple of prostitutes cavort around rather lethargically and drunkenly, making predictions as to what the New Year will bring. Max and his friends are particularly piqued by the race to see which country first puts a man into space (we are still a good ten years away from Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon), and it is this strange mix of wonderment—a dog has already been put into space—and uncertainly that seems to both grasp and weigh upon Max. It is this symbolic theme of reaching something monumental—getting “closer to the moon”—that also informs the film, as well as gives Caranfil’s piece its title. Just as Max seems precariously near to getting too close to one of the New Year’s ladies-of-the-night, the apartment doors open with dramatic theatricality and in struts Farmiga’s equallyalluring-and-fearsome Alice, who has returned after ten years studying abroad. It is clear that the four men in this long-standing friendship adore Alice, and in particular, Alice and Max have had a relationship (indeed, they have a twelve-year-old son together). While Max soon pushes the inevitable divorce papers forward and strives to be a better man for Alice and their son, his “playfulness” with the young boy seems an eerie foreshadowing of what is to come. His son enjoys drama and play-acting, even convincing Max to pick him up at school and pretend to “arrest” him. Of course, because Dad is part of the Romanian police force, he can do it and get away with it. Such scenes of limited domestic bliss and familiarity are short-lived, but nevertheless, this film’s meticulous blending of fantasy that becomes reality does not go unnoticed, and every small moment in Closer to the Moon seems microcosmic of a larger meaning.

Meanwhile, holding a grudge against Max for abandoning his sister, Damaceanu is ready to let Max out to pasture in a couple of months (once he has finished the reports he is working on, naturally), and Max—perhaps feeling burned, cynical, and jaded about the world—seems ready to be pushed towards recklessness even more than in the past. We must understand that he and his friends are part of a generation that had no guarantees— as Jews in a Nazi-led world, to have any future post-War seems miraculous. Yet, they are also part of a generation that feels as if all the future has brought them is a chance to settle—not happiness, true meaning, or the ability to attain total goals with ambition.

One evening, as the five friends attempt to enjoy a rooftop birthday party for Dumi, their brief moment of nostalgia over their rabblerousing years as young revolutionaries— slightly catalyzed by Razvan’s wistful delight at being arrested many times in his past— turns to a “playful” banter of what would happen if the five friends did something that could serve as a slap in the face of anti-Communist Romania. Sure, during the war, none of these five Jews felt as if they would have much of a future, but even now, there is a feeling of ennui in this still very-much-oppressed atmosphere. Each feels cheated in some way, demoted, fired, or robbed of something greater owed to him or her. What begins as a party-game of what would happen if the quintet robbed the National Bank, and did so under the guise of filming a movie, escalates, but is at first seen as an odd joke. Yet, Max takes the idea seriously, and indeed, Alice seems almost far too invested in the scheme, imagined or not, as it is she who suggests the ruse of a film-set and robbing the guarded car that transports the money: after all, she reminds her four other friends, when they were children, they always did want to be actors.

Ironically, the five Jewish professionals-turned-crooks do get their chance at “stardom” before the camera, but it is at a hard, long cost. As will be seen, they will be arrested within months after the crime, prosecuted, and then forced to recreate (albeit with lavish exaggeration) their heist for a propaganda film. Caranfil uses costuming to starkly contrast the polished work and leisure wardrobes of the pre-criminal gang with their stained and splattered prison-outfits to truly underscore how dangerously and unfathomably low these people have fallen—and all for trying to make a point, rather than hurt anyone or steal for money alone.

At first, while the four other friends of what would later be dubbed (in real life) the Ioanid Gang stare at Max in disbelief, fearful of his suggestion that he will steal weapons and stash them before he is officially fired from the police bureau, this reaction is shortlived. With some rallying, and eerily-desperate words about an uncertain and meaningless future, Max is able to convince his friends to join him.

Quickly, the plan takes shape and, after a row over their son wanting to be involved in the crime, even the once-apprehensive Alice joins Max and their friends to take part in the shady-handlings. More drama ensues when their young son, locked up at home, breaks free, spies on his parents, and films the heist, sending Alice and Max into yet another domestic violence scenario. Yet, it is more heart-wrenching than volatile to see Alice— an educated, progressive-thinking woman who finally must think of someone else (her son) and tries to give him what she could never have (a life free of crime and hiding)— fail in her mission. It is no wonder she seems, later, almost to relish her role as the crophaired prisoner in filthy striped inmate attire. She may feel it is her price to pay for failing her son.

Of course, there are some lighthearted moments of “thwarting” that follow the crime, such as overheard and misconstrued words by an old busybody that has police swarming to Yorgu’s attic to find his “buried treasure” of the weapons and a share of the money from the heist. And it is not long before the four other members of the gang are rounded-

up and arrested (only a couple of months, in real life). But here is where the film really begins to take-off: instead of these five robbers simply facing punishment and being imprisoned for life or even killed swiftly, they are used as an example of what will happen to those who dare defy the national government. Although the story of the bank heist itself has been swept under the carpet, probably to preserve the “good name” of the anti-Communist regime, officials such as Anton Lesser’s crusty insomniac Holban are content to beat the prisoners one day and then stuff them into wigs and costumes, cover their battle-wounds (earned through police brutality) with make-up, and tuck them into succulent feasts all for the sake of their propaganda movie.

Indeed, at this point, Closer to the Moon almost becomes something of a farce, mocking crime, government, and the film-industry itself. While it is uncertain what Caranfil’s true aim was through his hyperbolized drunken director Flaviu (played with perfectly natural and reckless aplomb by Allan Corduner) whose lack of sobriety and constant sleep means that Max and cameraman Virgil (more on Harry Lloyd’s role in all this later) become directors, the film is at least populated well-enough with a diversified number of figures to hold audience interest. With the four male thieves in eye-liner and suits contrasting severely with their typically-sunken-eyed-and-starved look; and with Alice’s neatlycoiffed red wig, glam lipstick, and dainty clothes a clear departure from the rancid prisoner uniform she typically wears, the gang members seem to live the most incongruous life imaginable. At night, they are in tatters and look to be standing on death’s door; in the daylight, they are the very living metaphors of film itself: all an illusion, a façade as gilded as a desperate convict whose death seems imminent but who is forced to parade through cobbled streets—once the site of the heist—in order to star in a film warning against the very actions he or she has committed.

Above: One of the first images of Closer to the Moon (with Harry Lloyd and Vera Farmiga) ever released, way back in 2011.

Meanwhile, the convicts and their fellow cell-mates do their best to inform their loved ones that they are still alive and well, sending messages along via Virgil, who serves as a rather complicit, if not honorary, member of the gang. Indeed, he helps ensure that their legacy of law-breaking and recklessness continues. Noting how close Virgil seems to be growing with his new “stars,” especially Alice, for whom the young filmmaker has some unspoken affection, the conspiring Holban has the boy pulled out of bed one evening and

whisked to his house (ironically, the one Max and his wife used to occupy) in order to confront Virgil yet also to insist he keep helping the criminals in their attempts to contact their families. In fact, the scheming official admits, he has another job for Virgil: get information as to the whereabouts of the sixth gang member, Alice’s son, who, it has recently been determined, had filmed the heist while it went-off. Of course, Holban’s plan will only work if Alice grows comfortable enough with Virgil to tell him anything, and if Virgil feels obligated enough to Holban to tell him anything.

Eventually, Alice does slip away from the film set and pursue her son; Virgil goes right after her in an aloof sort of way that soon turns to pity and affection. After spending the night with Virgil, Alice and he return to the film set the next day, where the National Government, having heard of Alice’s “escape,” put an end to the film. Meanwhile, Alice has left Virgil a letter with instructions—only to be opened after she is gone—and it is not long before the five prisoners are whisked back to prison, the only future left to await a swift execution.

While the quintet of prisoners who seem always to know that their life of glamor on the film-set is only passing the time in a glorious Heaven before they reach the Hell of death and afterward are rounded up, Max will not remain silent. Why not, he asks Damaceanu, why not send prisoners into space instead of animals? At least human beings can take notes and report back to the scientists—and if criminal’s die in space, no one will care. It is clear from Max’s words that he is not being foolishly desperate but is hopeful; in him seems always this dreamer, destined for the stars. But the former brother-in-law’s response crashes upon the schemer’s ears rather rudely. Absolutely not: space explorers are glorified and national heroes and, certainly, no gang like theirs that dares to make a mockery of the State of Romania will be destined for such greatness. A viewer can taste the palpable irony and hypocrisy of the official’s words. After all, if prisoners are not glorified in such a manner, why have the five thieves spent the past few weeks treated like pampered film stars? Why have the police officials catered to their every whim, even trading in the food used during a luncheon for meals considered more pleasing to each of the criminal-actors? Even if the propaganda film is to be used as a tool of the National Government, certainly, Alice, Max, Razvan, Yorgu, and Dumi have dined well more than have been beaten; have been respected and allowed to roam relatively freely around the film-set rather than be tethered together at every free moment. In short, Closer to the Moon perhaps reveals a country of dreaming officials whose inability to see their own flaws in their system—short-sightedness, making mountains of molehills instead of focusing on more pressing matters (after all, the five criminals robbed a bank and kidnapped a couple of men who were later released—no one was injured or killed). By extension, the film may just as well be pointing the accusatory finger at any institution or government that fails to live by its own standards and that makes symbols out of its people instead of actually fixing what is broken.

Towards the end of the film, Virgil opens his letter and finds that she has tasked him with planning her son’s bar mitzvah, a celebration shown juxtaposed, image by image, with the prompt executions of the four men in the gang. As for Alice: after it is found that she is pregnant, she is sentenced to life-imprisonment but, in 1964, was released through an amnesty for political crimes act. In the early 1970s, she and her son and daughter

immigrated to Israel, facts the film reveals through script at its finale. Yet, the final words of the movie that could very much be called an ensemble picture are given to Alice, who talks not of the crime or the fate of her friends but, rather, of the space race. In April of 1961, man makes it into space and the first human, Russian Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, completes an orbit of the earth in his spaceship. Alice mentions Max, suggesting he was right to think it would be soon that a man is sent into space. In these moments, the film comes full-circle, like a full-moon, exposing that undergirding Caranfil’s movie is the same, basic human desire of upward mobility—not in the sense of money or prestige but in personal fulfillment.

Each character in the film, from the young Virgil who desires to find his passion to Alice’s attempts to be a better mother than she was her own person to Max whose personal grievances and unfortunate marriage seem to cause him nothing but unhappiness, strives for more, perhaps more than they are worth or the world is willing to give them. Perhaps it is their background and ethnicity that prevents the gang members from ever rising “closer to the moon” of their goals. Yet, it is human nature for everyone to aim at something, to aim for the moon because, at the very least, when they fall, if you will, they will fall among the stars.

Above: Harry Lloyd, deep in thought, at the world premiere of Closer to the Moon Q&A session.

Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter II: Harry Lloyd’s Virgil Lurking both in the shadows and sunlight of the main events of Closer to the Moon—the “film,” heist, and the propaganda piece that followed in its wake—is the young Virgil, played with the bright-eyed inquisitiveness and dose of objectivity Harry Lloyd manages to capture quite well. Living with an elderly and kindly Jewish couple named Moritz (David de Keyser) and Sarah (Frances Cuka), Virgil is treated almost like a grandson. Although it is never explained as to how he comes to board with this couple, it would appear that he is a young man, perhaps a just-recently-graduated student, looking to find himself in a Romania that seems elusive to him. His life is pedestrian—work, eat hearty meals, read a bit before bed, and then sleep. While Caranfil could have easily

stripped his screenplay of Virgil’s backstory, though, Harry’s character adds something of a reprieve from the stark, brutal world of the convicts.

The film’s first Chapter, in fact, is named after Virgil, and the first scene shows the coolly-dressed, stained-apron-wearing Harry Lloyd working at a canteen (an airy café) across the street from the National Bank and a maternity ward. What looks like the general hubbub of any ordinary day is cut-short with the cries over a megaphone that there’s no need to panic and that a film is being shot on the street. Thus, when gunfire goes off and bank truck guards are kidnapped, women holding babies watch from their maternity ward windows without flinching. Virgil crams himself towards the front of the crowd and, although blinking and cringing a bit when he hears the gunfire, clearly relishes the action of the scene—everything from the sacks of money being tossed into the getaway van to the quintet in gas makes to the woman firing a machine gun into the sky. There are even signs that say a film shoot is in progress, adding a whiff of authenticity to the scene. Scanning the crowd, Virgil inhales with delight everything he sees, allowing his eyes to linger tellingly on a cameraman (who is later revealed as Alice and Max’s knickers-wearing son) on a balcony, and even appears to get off work early, hanging up his apron soon after the film shoot is over and, strolling into the street, picking up one of the filming signs and carrying it home. It hangs for a year on the back of his bedroom door, in fact, eerily marking the occasion of the country’s largest heist but, more so for the unknowing Virgil at this point, marking the day that the open-minded young man decides to get invested in film-making.

Later, at dinner, Virgil informs his kindly friends of the film-shoot and Moritz tells Virgil of movie stars from before the war, and how he used to see all the pictures; Jean Harlow seemed a particular favorite and in Moritz is something of an older Virgil and even Max—a dreamer whose ambitions and glory-days seem unlived. After supper, Virgil sits in his bedroom, poring over Moritz’s old movie-star magazines, and then gets out of bed, curves his fingers around one eye while closing the other, and pretends to walk around with a movie-camera. Although a rather childish moment, Harry Lloyd manages to assert his character as a young-ish man on the cusp of full maturity, still playful in his ways yet poised to begin seeing reality for what it is, in all its close-up glory.

In a way, then, Virgil is the camera “eye” into the back-story of the gang members’ lives. Serving as the common public who, at the time of the heist, had no idea that it wasn’t a film set and was really the actual deal, Virgil becomes just the Everyman whose existence is changed not by the reality of an action but by his interpretation of that action. It is intriguing to wonder how many other lives, if any, the gang members may have altered due to the way they carried out their rebellious act. After all, had they not concealed their reality behind the guise of film-making (here,Closer to the Moon reminds of 2012’s Argo, but only in the sense that film-making seems an easy way to conceal reality behind the alluring glitz connotative of Hollywood; in short, making pictures themselves offer a useful smokescreen), would Virgil have been particularly galvanized to quit being a waiter at the canteen and become a film-maker? Would he have met Alice, earned her trust, and managed to carry out the good deed she thought was to be her final act for her son?

Perhaps Closer to the Moon offers more questions than answers, but, the next day, Virgil loafs around the nearby movie studios, where he unfortunately comes across the alcoholic Flaviu vomiting into the bushes. Flaviu quickly spots the wide-eyed-and-disgusted Virgil (Harry Lloyd can play proper disgust with fluid realism), recruits him to run to the corner to buy vodka and conceal it in his Thermos, and to return there post-haste, ensuring that the careless director never lacks for the spirits. The impressionable and hopeful young man, probably too disbelieving of his luck, runs off as quickly as imaginable. One year later, we find Virgil’s initial foray into the film industry as an alcoholic-dispensing assistance has evolved into letting him be a cameraman’s assistance. Peering into the lens and zooming in and out at a troupe of dancing girls could have been easily sexualized or profane, but for the innocent Virgil—who, at this point, reminds of young Colin Clark, as played by Eddie Redmayne in My Week with Marilyn (2011)—it is a fascinating study in movement, art, and the human body. Just as the aforementioned older members of the gang seek meaning in their dreary post-war lives, Virgil seems desperate to find it now, although having been untouched by the war, presumably having been too young to recall anything. A bit introverted and certainly more quiet than talkative in the film, Virgil seems most at home behind the camera, observing people through the distance of the zooming lens.

Virgil’s next big break comes when he is recruited as cameraman for the propaganda piece that is to star the five gang members, and of course, the young man is so effectively thrilled by this promotion of sorts that he rushes about the meeting table and properly douses the director with coffee (probably Flaviu’s only objection is that it was not his ubiquitous vodka). Harry plays the delightfully passionate-yet-inchoate Virgil flawlessly at this moment, whipping out a stained handkerchief from his pocket in order to dab at the coffee mess, sheepishly making things worse, and somehow managing to sneak out of the room without causing much distress to Holban, who probably already spies in this young impressionable and desperate man someone he can use.

It is not long, too, before Virgil becomes fascinated by the gang, and he recognizes them to be the same quintet he had seen a year ago in what he had once thought to be a fake heist. Standing in the courtroom and recording the verdicts (each member seems grisly delighted to be put to death, but then again, they have expected it for some time), Virgil is horrified to hear that the entire case has been blown out of proportion. Whereas the prosecution and judge seem ready to call the bank heist a scene of madness and horror, with people running savage upon hearing gunshots and live in danger, Virgil knows all too well the reality of the situation: no one was harmed. All was calm. People so believed a film was being shot that not a soul was paranoid. He recalls the women and babies at the maternity ward windows, and the feeling of elation watching the “action movie” being filmed. Yet, when he tries to set things in order, Virgil gets his first real taste of how the real world acts: it will tell you to lie, cheat, and keep silent. It will try to buy your loyalty, convince you that you saw nothing, and essentially keep you from doing anything but tell the truth.

Encouraged to keep silence about what he saw, Virgil continues to shoot the propaganda piece, but his invested interest in the gang members begins to focus on Alice, when he

sees how quickly she is able to burst into tears and throw a tantrum on set. Feeling sorry for her, he tries to comfort the teary-eyed convict-turned-actress, only to have her winking-ly tell him that she is merely throwing her weight around and “marking my territory.” Thus, slowly yet surely, the young and impressionable young man who seems to, at first, wear his heart on his sleeve, begins to see the world as one giant act. The world he puts on film—the world of beautiful moments, of brutal scenes, and the closeups of human beings just being themselves—is really an allusion, no more true than those milieus in the cinema house pictures.

Virgil further finds himself mixed-up in more pressing circumstances when Max stuffs the numbers of contacts into his pockets, asking him to call family members of various convicts and let them know their loved ones are okay. Without much hesitation—and perhaps Virgil is our necessary portrait of the innocent (the type of person at core of every individual before he or she begins to see the world for what it truly is), desperate to make connections in any way—Virgil goes home and, under cover of night, calls the family members to relay the messages. When Moritz finds the young man making clandestine phone calls—and does not believe for a minute Virgil’s story that he is calling his fiancée—Moritz is marvelously understanding. A devout Jew, he is also open-minded, compassionate, and somewhat worldly. He listens to American radio, static-and-all, because he can hear the music—like Johannes Brahms’—that would be considered illegal in anti-Communist Romania. Within Moritz’s character is a man who seems part nostalgic-survivor of two World Wars and part forward-thinking and forgiving member of the world who wants his young tenant to enjoy life.

Thus, when Virgil later brings Alice home during her aforementioned moment of “escape,” Moritz and his wife treat Alice to a fine dinner and do not seem to question that Virgil takes the older women to his room. Downstairs, Moritz smiles knowingly and even turns up the music on his radio, as if to serenade the couple that charades as an engaged pair.

Indeed, that evening, Alice makes the move on the unsuspecting, perhaps nervous, Virgil, and this young man loses his virginity to this alluring older woman who, despite all her confidence, moxy, and history, still worries about the way she smells. In such small fragments, Caranfil reminds us that this is a human picture, not a historical one. After making love, the young protagonist asks the bank robber for the story of the heist, which she tells him in an extended flashback, further solidifying Virgil as the character most inline with the audience, as he allows us access to necessary back-story. Virgil, then, is our necessary portrait of the naïveté; in many ways, Closer to the Moon is the coming-of-age story for him, an evolution that just happens to happen within the context of an infamous bank-heist. In reality, though, human lives intertwine organically, oftentimes without preconceptions or bias, and such is the case in Caranfil’s movie. Therefore, inCloser to the Moon, we find two main interconnected stories—one of a bank heist, the other of a young man’s life changing because of it and in an unexpected way—that inform and complement one another in a poetic, sometimes haunting way.

When Alice leaves the letter for Virgil asking him, with Moritz’s help, to plan her son’s bar mitzvah, it is a letter of confidence in this young man, an outsider. Whereas she can

no longer depend on her friends of old times, who are now in the same situation as is she, she has no other choice but to put faith in a young cameraman—a stranger, really—just as she chooses to trust in him earlier that day when she allows him to follow her to the house where her son is hidden away.

Virgil’s true allegiance to Alice and to human kindness is when Holban later threatens the young man and attempts to get him to reveal the address of Alice’s son, but the cameraman refuses. He risks his job, governmental punishment, and personal reputation for a convict, but Virgil—with all his innocent and compassionate view of the world— recognizes in Alice a broken woman with only one last wish, and that is protection for her son. Seeing the real Alice, the one with the boyish hair chopped in prison, the filthy refugee clothes, and tears brimming in her eyes, affects Virgil more than the demands of any government official. True loyalties, the film suggests, come from the heart, not from the commands of others.

In the end, Harry Lloyd plays Virgil with a truly endearing, slightly-whimsical fashion. Using his eyes mostly, Harry’s Virgil is like an extension of his camera: probing the human spirit, looking for reactionary cues in others, testing emotions and learning to gauge them. As aforementioned, the film is something like a coming-of-age narrative for Virgil, but not to the extent that Closer to the Moon can be called a true bildungsroman. While the director could have certainly gone this way by beginning the film with younger versions of the five gang members, instead, he decides to focus on the aftermath of their adult decision, and thrust Virgil into the mix to showcase a younger generation learning about what the war does to people—of Alice’s age or Moritz’s—just as we, the audiences of Closer to the Moon, learn about this oft-neglected part of Romanian history as well.

Above: Harry Lloyd answers a questions about playing Virgil at the Q&A. Below: Harry listens as director Nae Caranfil talks about his creative process. Images (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter III: The Q&A Session After the film, Harry Lloyd, Nae Caranfil, and two of the film’s creators, including producer Michael Fitzgerald, were on hand to discuss this labor of love. While some members of the audience felt that the story was aligned with Virgil and told from his perspective, Caranfil (very rightly) was quick to challenge this supposition. Indeed, while the film begins with Virgil in close-up, and the narrative of the bank heist gets its feet wet on his stomping grounds in the canteen’s neighborhood, Closer to the Moon is something like a relay race among the actors who take part. After Harry Lloyd’s Virgil gets his turn, the film very much gets taken-up by Vera Farmiga’s dazzling Alice, who somehow manages to remind of the brazen Barbara Stanwyck (maybe it’s the wig) and looks as comfortable playing the hardened-criminal as she does the tender mother or the wounded lover. Mark Strong’s Max, too, has a formidable presence on the screen, his most alluring moments being when he surprises the audience by either throwing his wife into a pool after she smashes the television at a “friendly” dinner-party or looks only slightly crestfallen when his friends find the bank-heist idea (at first) just a joke. The steeliness in his eyes—that dark, disturbing haunt of the devil—make clear why Strong has built up such a curriculum vitae as he has, oftentimes starring as “villains”; yet, here, he reminds of the abrasive and brash, yet truly sensitive, Tosker Cox, whom he portrayed brilliantly in 1996’s miniseries Our Friends in the North. Sub-characters, too—like Anton Lesser’s Holban (it’s fascinating how such a diminutive-looking actor like Lesser can always manage to command attention and inspire fear in his audience) and Stuart McQuarrie’s Damaceanu—help flesh-out the sentiments of the picture. These two in particular added a sinister layer of corruption to the film, exposing a flawed government that refuses to focus on its own problem and, instead, pries into others’. Yet, to compensate for this seriousness that could have easily weighed-down the film, we have lighter figures, like Moritz, Flaviu, and Virgil of course, to remind us of the strength and beauty of a humanity—even a drunken one like Flaviu, who clearly takes the time to enjoy life, one inebriated moment at a time.

Harry was only asked one question specifically, asked to reflect upon the film, and he found it a delight to travel to Romania and plunge into this world that, historically, he knew very little about. Unable to really speak much about the story Caranfil took and crafted into his own vision as almost a fantasy-meets-reality moment, Harry nevertheless quite obviously had a fine time being a part of this production.

Another popular question among Friday night’s audience seemed to be why Caranfil did not properly infuse his film with elements that seem truly Romanian. One cinema-goer said the picture actually reminded her more of an “Italian” film, although Romania’s film industry has certainly burgeoned over the years, considering the country boasts “spectacular locations—encompassing river deltas, dense forests, ancient cities and majestic mountains—and [has a] reputation for cost-effectiveness” (Holdsworth). While Caranfil seemed a bit crestfallen to hear even the mere suggestion that his picture does not look “Romanian” enough, he stressed once more how he is a story-teller, not a documentary maker or a “historian,” and that the picture is true to his feelings, memories, and sentiments about growing up in Romania during that time. In truth,Closer to the Moon reflects interiority, not external reality; it is a story, though rooted in true events, is

built with the tools of connotation rather than denotation and it is very much the writer and film-maker’s playground.

What is more, producer Michael Fitzgerald expressed with deep conviction his desire to find a distributor for Closer to the Moon, whether in the states or globally. Calling himself “the only American in the room” (well, not quite!), Fitzgerald expressed how he hopes that showing Caranfil’s film at least at the Romanian Film Festival will offer a first-step to gaining a wider audience. Indeed, the film truly deserves it.

Above: Harry listens to film producer Michael Fitzgerald campaign for a distributor for Closer to the Moon. Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter IV: Chatting with Harry Lloyd After the Q&A, Harry Lloyd was on-hand, mingling in the theatre and then at the aftershow cocktail reception. Two Lloydalists were on hand to ask him a few questions about Closer to the Moon and his upcoming work. He admitted to us that when he first got the script for Caranfil’s film, he was not sure what it was all about, but loved the challenge of it. He was game to simply show-up in Romania and “figure it out,” so to speak. As he talked casually and engagingly, Harry was lit up with an infectious smile and seemed to really love the spontaneity of acting and how it allows him the luxury and freedom to really play in the moment. He also mentioned that the original propaganda film, the shooting of which is showcased in the film, served as the main background material in terms of “research.” Harry also acknowledged that other countries do not know much about this time in Romania, or this event and situation, and it is quite neat to draw something so unknown into the realm of familiarity, if even just a little bit, he said.

When asked about other upcoming films, or older work that has yet to be released on DVD or for U.S. Distribution, Harry did not know much about when such features as The

Fear (2012) would be available or viewable in North America, but seemed delighted that people were at least watching his work, “however they can get it,” he laughed. He also said that work on Big Significant Things (2014, according to IMDB.com) continues, and that this weekend while in the states, he hopes to do some additional work on that picture, filmed in Mississippi earlier this year. Indeed, a look through Harry’s IMDB page HERE suggests that he has plenty of work to be viewed, or seen soon, but with little information as to when anyone can see it, unfortunately.

All we can hope, though, is that distributors will pick-up these really stellar and immersive works of film, shorts, and television and make them more visible and readilyavailable for public consumption. Lloydalists will tweet (@Lloydalists) any news, as it is revealed.

Above: Harry's final response at the end of the Q&A session--that was all, folks! Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter V: Concluding Thoughts Truly insightful, engaging, and thought-provoking, Closer to the Moon is not an easy film to compartmentalize, but this lack of pigeon-holing makes Caranfil’s film refreshingly open to interpretation. While it is not a perfect film (what is?), it is obvious the writer and director took great pains to craft his story, develop his characters, and perfect to the best of his abilities the ambiance of 1959 Romania. Furthermore, it is a film that combines humor and drama in equal measures because that is life—emotions flow as readily (and sometimes because of) vodka from a bottle. Generations of people coexist, from those of Alice’s child to Virgil’s to Max’s to Moritz’s generations, and each learns something from the others and tries to make sense of the legacy with which they have been tasked of carrying forward. What is more, it is a film that, despite the lack of Romanian accents or true historical adequacy, remains realistic and truthful to human beings and who they are at core. After all, it is human nature for all people to strive for something better, perhaps especially in times of discordance, whether it be war or postwar ennui or simply a pivotal moment of personal maturity.

Among the film’s most memorable moments are Virgil’s opening view of the bank-heist “film shoot” itself, and how we later see this fictionalized world of what it thought to be a film transformed into the real-world when Alice tells Virgil her side of the story. With the two perspectives finally in place to complement and inform one another, Caranfil reminds viewers how even what we see is suspect, cautions us that even our eyes and ears my deceive us, and challenges us to take a closer look at the way the world informs our decisions. Also chillingly poetic is the execution scene of the four male gangmembers. Each is nearly pinned against a bullet-hold-riddled wooden pole, blindfolds provided but not put on them. None of the men wear their blindfolds, instead, facing death boldly by staring it into the million probing eyes of the multiple-gun assembly before them. What a sudden change from the probing eye of Virgil’s camera that had once studied them so closely; now, they are stared at from the barrels of death, bravely knowing it is coming because they “clearly knew they would be caught and executed” (Closer). Caranfil chose to splice through this execution sequence shots of Virgil recording Alice and Max’s son’s bar mitzvah, with the young boys at that event executing their own orchestrated movement—of elaborate traditional Jewish dances. It is certainly not lost on the audience that Caranfil is making a bold political suggestion here: that much of what goes on in our government or world does so behind-the-scenes. Even the young birthday boy seems unaware of what is happening with his father. The rest of the world, too, knows little or nothing as to what happened for this gang that seems to have been used as an example and destroyed for making a statement rather than hurting or killing anyone (indeed, even the money they stole seemed to be sitting around in hiding places; it was never about the money).

To have Caranfil’s laborious work of love finally find a public audience is certainly a noteworthy moment, and Lloydalists is proud to have been there—as a fan of fine film and art, as well as independent artists, I really enjoyed being able to see this film unveiled for the first time, and having had the luxury of sitting in the middle of the front row at the Walter Reade Theater to do it. Despite the darkness inherent of the film’s storyline, it is not a movie that dwells long on the horrors inside the polluted prison walls, nor does it dwell long on idyllic past memories. Nothing is overtly glamorous unless it is Alice’s incongruous red wig, lipstick, and dainty outfit for the film—a sheer contrast to the grisly reality of how she and her four co-conspirators are used by the government, their noses essentially rubbed in their criminal act through the gauzy lens and transient bubbles of show-business. Indeed, the Making Waves festival site calls Closer to the Moon a film with a “tragic aspect,” yet the story, “forever shrouded in mystery, gets an unexpectedly light treatment” (“Making Waves”).

What I found most accessible about Closer to the Moon, however, was probably either a very latent theme or one the director did not intend. The enchanting moment of the world beyond the canteen where films are being made and action is happening felt so markedly refreshing and believable. Any viewer could see easily how Alice and Max’s young son and Virgil alike would want to be a part of that, too. For the former, the war is not even a memory and, thus, things like causing trouble and getting arrested are all part of the cinemas—the world of gangster films and action. Virgil, too, poised somewhere

tentatively between the war and post-war worlds, is trapped between this same dazzle and the real world that has him making clandestine phone-calls and smuggling convicts into his bedroom. Nothing, he seems to learn, lasts forever; time is short, transitory, and fleeting if you do not do enough to capture it—perhaps on film, or perhaps through a grand act of notoriety, for which Max aims. Moritz’s wistful recollections seem to emphasize this belief in Virgil in time, too. For Alice, legacy seems more bound within the lives of her children. It should be no wonder, too, that Max’s power of suggestion about pulling of the “joke” of a heist actually comes to fruition rather easily in the film. When so many desperate-for-meaning people are gathered together in such close quarters, having suffered the same injustices and discriminations, it is easy to sway the human heart, against what the head may be saying, to rash actions. Such, in the end, every character, regardless of his or her desire, seems ready to achieve more, to do more, and be more—seeks to lasso the moon and if not pull it down entirely, draw it just a little closer and within reach.

Appendices: News and Clarifications For those fans of Harry Lloyd and his work, Closer to the Moon is probably the largest leading-role Harry has had on the big-screen, and certainly worthy of his third-billing after Vera Farmiga and Mark Strong. As the theatre-goers made their way out of the room following the Q&A, and even during the cocktail reception, Harry was approached by various members of the crowd who wanted to shake his hand and tell him what a fine job he did and how he was the “heart and soul” of the film.

While early reviews of Closer to the Moon from 2011 and 2012 made it seem as Harry’s character “falls in love with Farmiga’s character” (Ge, “First”), never does Caranfil’s film step quite directly into this territory of love and romance. Instead, Lloyd’s character is more fascinated with Farmiga’s, and the two have a palpable chemistry that makes them feel more endeared to one another rather than in love. After Alice spends the night with Virgil, she thanks him for having given her what is probably her last moment of true happiness in life, and Virgil—who has just given his virtue for this woman and seems altogether mystified by her—seems more like the obliging good-guy than any hopeless romantic. Their act of love-making seems almost like a gift to one another—or a pact of commitment to one another—than anything overly intense or lasting.

*** The Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema festival series runs from November 29December 3rd at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, 165 W. 65th Street, New York, New York. *** Finally, please continue to support the works of Harry Lloyd and Nae Caranfil’s film by tweeting about it, retweeting @Lloydalists’ posts, or hashtagging #CloserToTheMoon and #HarryLloyd.

Above: Harry prepares to field questions at the Closer to the Moon Q&A. Have your own questions or reactions? Please tweet them to us or let us know in the comments! Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Works Cited & Consulted Caranfil, Nae. Closer to the Moon (Official Site). Closertothemoon.com. 20 Nov. 2013. Web. <http://www.closertothemoon.com/>.

Closer to the Moon. 2011. The Internet Movie Database. IMDB.com. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017486/combined>.

“Closer to the Moon: Harry Lloyd Joins the Cast.” Film Releases. Film-releases.com. 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://www.film-releases.com/news/film-news/15411>.

Ge, Linda. “First Look: ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Harry Lloyd on the Set of ‘Closer to the Moon’ with Vera Farmiga.” Up & Comers. Upandcomers.net. 1 Nov. 2011. Web. <http://upandcomers.net/tag/nae-caranfil/>.

Ge, Linda. “‘Game of Thrones’ Star Harry Lloyd Gets ‘Closer to the Moon’ (and Vera Farmiga).” Up & Comers. Upandcomers.net. 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 1 Sept. 2011. <http://upandcomers.net/2011/08/31/game-of-thrones-star-harry-lloyd-gets-closer-to-themoon-and-vera-farmiga/>.

Holdsworth, Nick. “Romania—Location and Costs Lure Production.” Variety. Variety.com. 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. <http://variety.com/2012/film/news/romania-locationcosts-lure-productions-1118060889/>.

“Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema: Closer to the Moon.” Film Society Lincoln Center.Filmlinc.com. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.filmlinc.com/films/onsale/closer-to-the-moon>.

“New Romanian Cinema.” The New York Times. Nytimes.com. 23 Nov. 2013. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/11/27/movies/romanian-cinema.html>.

YellowBrix. “Nae Caranfil's Newest Film 'Closer to the Moon' to Open Making Waves Festival.”Hispanicbusiness.com. 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2013/11/15/nae_caranfil_s_newest_film_closer.htm>. http://lloydalists.blogspot.com/2013/11/drawn-closer-to-moon-world-premiere-of.html

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Film Initiative are pleased to announce the 8th edition of MAKING WAVES: New Romanian Cinema, which has been hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “the annual weeklong survey that has helped define and establish the southeastern European country as a stronghold of socially incisive, independently minded personal cinema.” The 8th edition of the festival will take place at the Film Society of Lincoln Center from November 29 to December 3, 2013. The festival offers the best selection of contemporary Romanian filmmaking, including features, documentaries and shorts, along with retrospectives of Romanian filmmakers, special programs, panels and a book launch. This year the series will expand with a selection of the line up screening at the Jacob Burns Film Center from December 5-10. The series is co-presented by FSLC and the Romanian Film Initiative, and in partnership with the Jacob Burns Film Center and Transilvania International Film Festival.

“From its rich and underexplored past to its still-thriving present, Romanian cinema remains among the most vital in the world,” said Dennis Lim, FSLC Director of Cinematheque Programming. “We are very pleased to welcome back our Romanian showcase Making Waves for one of its strongest editions yet.”

This year’s edition includes exciting and critically-acclaimed new works including the World Premiere of the U.S.-Romanian production Closer to the Moon by Nae Caranfil as the opening night film, a true account of high-ranking Jewish members of the nomenklatura, who robbed the Romanian National Bank making it look like a film shoot, the Romanian selection for the Oscar® for best foreign film, Child’s Pose by Călin

Peter Netzer, and the NYFF51 favorite When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism by Corneliu Porumboiu which is the closing night film. Equally new are Domestic, Adrian Sitaru's third and most accomplished film yet, box-office hit Love Building, directed by first-timer Iulia Rugină and two feature-length documentaries: the bittersweet Here... I Mean There by Laura Căpățână-Juller (Best Romanian Film at the Transilvania International Film Festival) and the highly provocative The București Experiment by Tom Wilson, most probably the first mockumentary in the Romanian film history.

Corina Șuteu, President of Making Waves, states, “This year, Making Waves represents for its initiators a landmark, as a Romanian film season striving to make a strong statement about the absolute need for freedom of artistic expression in times when propaganda is more than exclusively the instrument of authoritarian systems. The 2013 edition of Making Waves is also modestly dedicated to the “Save Roșia Montană” movement of peaceful protests all over the world.”

For the second consecutive year, MAKING WAVES is now a fully independent festival of Romanian contemporary cinema and culture, made possible solely through the support of private funders and individual donations, including a large number of Romanian artists who believe that audiences at home and abroad deserve unfettered access to the best of Romanian contemporary culture. The series receives no public funding from Romanian state institutions.

Initiated in 2006 and chaired by reputed cultural entrepreneur and cultural policy expert Corina Șuteu, MAKING WAVES has become a fixture in New York City’s cultural scene. In an inventive selection made by artistic director Mihai Chirilov, MAKING WAVES also introduces American audiences to films and filmmakers who laid the ground for the new Romanian cinema long before Cannes or Berlin discovered “The Romanian New Wave.” The festival has grown every year, attracting a larger and dedicated following and building a strong recognition in the U.S. media and among film professionals, both Romanian and American.

Mihai Chirilov, Artistic Director, adds, “This is our most surprising edition yet. Next to sure bets like Cristi Puiu and Corneliu Porumboiu’s newest films, there’s the top winner at this year’s Berlinale, the world premiere of a Romanian film shot in English with an stellar international cast, a triple dose of genre cinema from the ‘80s, and last but not least, a provocative documentary that dares to investigate a strange experiment from Romania’s recent history.”

The 8th edition of MAKING WAVES includes a retrospective of the work of Corneliu Porumboiu. In a recent article flagging “20 Directors to Watch” in The New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, “Mr. Porumboiu is a master of the long static shot, the weary argument and the deadpan existential joke. He fixes his camera on the struggles of minor potentates and midlevel functionaries — a TV host in “12:08”; a detective and his bosses in “Police, Adjective”; a movie director in “Evening Falls on Bucharest, or Metabolism” — and divines the secrets of his society, and of our vain, pathetic species, in the smallest details

of speech and behavior.”

MAKING WAVES continues its special program “Creative Freedom through Cinema” about the relationship between arts and politics, focusing on film as a propaganda tool then and now, inviting the Czech Republic and Slovakia to join in the conversation. Special screenings of landmark films by Dan Pița, Mircea Veroiu, Štefan Uher and Jirí Menzel will be accompanied by a panel conversation with filmmakers, film historians and curators from the guest countries. Presented in partnership with the Romanian National Film Center, Czech Center New York and the Slovak Film Institute, and with leading support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

Included in this program is the Transylvanians Trilogy, a compelling incursion into the “Red Western” (or “Eastern”) genre, produced in Romania in the ‘80s and directed by reputed filmmakers Dan Pița and Mircea Veroiu. This popular trilogy tells the story of two Transylvanians who go to America to persuade their brother to come back home, and will be presented for the first time to U.S. audiences in its entirety, with brand new prints.

The festival will also present its annual series of short films that will run for free throughout the festival. These include a crop of the best recent Romanian short films highlighting directors to watch, along with a selection of the shorts by Corneliu Porumboiu.

Other special screenings include Cristi Puiu’s Three Exercises of Interpretation, which emerged from an acting workshop led by the director of The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, and the unusual visual campaign of the 2013 Transilvania International Film Festival which includes 20 clips directed by Puiu starring Luminița Gheorghiu.

Special Guests Luminița Gheorghiu, winner of the 2006 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, is this year’s special guest. She delivers a pitch perfect performance in Child’s Pose, and will take questions from the audience after the screening. Director Nae Caranfil (The Rest is Silence) will join the festival opening for the World Premiere of his latest film,Closer to the Moon. Corneliu Porumboiu, subject of a festival retrospective, will return to New York for the closing night screening ofWhen Evening Falls on Bucharest, or Metabolism. Other guests include Tom Wilson, writer and director of The București Experiment, Eugen Lumezianu and Oana Răsuceanu, actor and screenwriter, respectively, of Love Building. Štěpán Hulík, screenwriter of Agnieska Holland’s Burning Bush and author of Cinema of Forgetting on Czechoslovak cinema, and film curator Irena Kovarovawill join the conversation about film and propaganda.

Dominique Nasta, Professor of Film Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, will join the festival for the launch of her recently published book – Contemporary Romanian Cinema. The History of an Unexpected Miracle, the first in-depth analysis of many essential films ranging from the silent period to the present day.

MAKING WAVES 2013 is made possible with the leading support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Alexandre Almăjeanu and Gentica Foundation, Adrian Porumboiu, HBO Romania, Adrian Giurgea, Colgate University & Christian A. Johnson Foundation, Blue Heron Foundation, Mica Ertegun, Marie France Ionesco, Lucian Pintilie, Daiana Voiculescu and Renzo Cianfranelli, and other generous sponsors and donors, including visual artists Șerban Savu, Dan Perjovschi, Adrian Ghenie, Mircea Cantor. For the second year, over 250 festival audiences, artists and Romanian film fans supported Making Waves as part of a Kickstarter campaign, and many others have joined the first festival fundraising gala event and auction, and placed their bids on objects from landmark films of the Romanian New Wave. Special support from ICON Production, LARK Play Development Center, Șapte Seri, Dilema veche, Radio Guerilla, filmmaker Mona Nicoară, and Răzvan Popovici (SoNoRo).

Last but not least, the campaign for the independent continuation and expansion of the festival has been backed by leading filmmakers including directors Corneliu Porumboiu, Nae Caranfil, Tudor Giurgiu, Radu Muntean, Alexandru Solomon, Cristi Puiu, Cătălin Mitulescu, Cristian Mungiu, actors Luminița Gheorghiu, Vlad Ivanov, Andi Vasluianu, or producer Ada Solomon.

The Festival Board includes Corina Șuteu, President; Mihai Chirilov, Artistic Director; Oana Radu, Romanian Film Initiative; Dennis Lim, Director of Cinematheque Programming, Film Society of Lincoln Center; and Brian Ackerman, Programming Director, Jacob Burns Film Center.

The continuation and expansion of Making Waves has also been supported by an Honorary Board which brings together Scott Foundas, Senior Film Critic, Variety; visual artist Adrian Ghenie; documentary filmmaker and human rights activist Mona Nicoară, and visual artist Dan Perjovschi.

Screening Venues: The Film Society of Lincoln Center WRT: Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th Street, north side between Broadway & Amsterdam, upper level HGT: Howard Gilman Theatre, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W 65th Street, south side between Broadway & Amsterdam FBT: Francesca Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W 65th Street, south side between Broadway & Amsterdam AMP: Amphitheater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W 65th Street, south side between Broadway & Amsterdam Tickets go on sale today, October 28, visit http://filmlinc.com/makingwaves .

Single screening tickets are $13; $9 for students and seniors (62+); and $8 for Film Society members. A three-film package is $30; $24 for students and seniors (62+); and $21 for Film Society members. The package discount prices apply with the purchase of tickets to three films or more. With an All Access Pass for $99, see all fifteen films in

Making Waves, including the Opening Night, Centerpiece and Closing Night screenings.

The All Access Pass is available for purchase exclusively online.

Visit www.FilmLinc.com for complete information.

MAKING WAVES 2013 FILMS, DESCRIPTIONS & SCHEDULE All films in Romanian and with English subtitles, unless otherwise mentioned.

Opening Night!

World Premiere!

CLOSER TO THE MOON Nae Caranfil, 2013, Romania-USA; 110m The true account of a group of high-ranking Jewish members of the nomenklatura, who, in 1959, staged what was to become known as the coup of the century: They robbed Romania’s National Bank, making it look like a film shoot. And this is only the beginning. Once arrested and prosecuted, they were forced to reenact their parts in the heist for a propaganda movie. Despite its tragic aspect, this incredible story, forever shrouded in mystery, gets an unexpectedly light treatment. Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, and Game of Thrones’ Harry Lloyd star. In English.

In person: director Nae Caranfil **FRI. NOV 29, 6:30 pm, WRT centerpiece!

New York Premiere!

Child’s pose/poziția copilului Călin Peter Netzer, 2013, Romania, 112m Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale and a smashing box-office hit at home, Netzer’s third film brilliantly deals with the mother of all moral dilemmas – faced by a parent willing to do everything in order to save her son, who killed a child in a car accident. The tight script makes things especially complicated, as the relation between mother and son is cruelly tormented. Playing the domineering yet strangely sympathetic mother – who might be the victim after all – Luminița Gheorghiu (the nurse with a heart of gold in The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu) is pitch perfect, walking on a tightrope. A Zeitgeist Films Release. CHILD’S POSE will open at Film Forum on February 19.

In person: actress Luminița Gheorghiu **SAT. NOV 30, 9:00 pm, FBT CLOSING NIGHT! When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism/Când se lasĂ seara peste București sau metabolism Corneliu Porumboiu, 2013, Romania-France, 89m This rigorously structured new film from Corneliu Porumboiu takes an interestingly oblique look at filmmaking. We don’t see the process itself, but a succession of exchanges that take place when the camera isn’t rolling: dinners after work between the

director-protagonist Paul and his actress, Alina, a rehearsal, an exchange between Paul and his tough producer Magda, a car ride through Bucharest at night. Every scene is covered in one meticulously executed take. Porumboiu’s approach, which the filmmaker himself has likened to that of Hong Sang-soo, allows us to concentrate on the rhythms of the everyday – silences, pauses, hesitations; the anodyne discomfort of making conversation; the strangeness of so many temporary relationships between exhausted, edgy individuals. When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (the title will make sense at the end) is so precisely composed that its very construction has a crystalline beauty. A Cinema Guild Release.

In person: director Corneliu Porumboiu **TUE. DEC 3, 6:00 pm, WRT U.S. Premiere!

Love building Iulia Rugină, 2013, Romania, 85m In this charming low-budget independent comedy that has "American remake" written all over it, 14 couples enroll in a camp designed to mend broken relationships, but things get quickly out of hand. One of the reasons is that the 7-day program is run by three young men who have emotional problems of their own, so they may not be the right trainers after all. It is noteworthy that this light and entertaining debut is actually the result of an acting workshop. Except for the leading trio (played by the only well-known actors in Love Building, who also run a private acting school in real life), everybody else in the cast is a student.

In person: Actor Eugen Lumezianu and screenwriter Oana Răsuceanu **SUN. DEC 1, 5:15 pm, FBT Domestic Adrian Sitaru, 2012, Romania-Germany, 85m There’s a tender and humorous touch to this light collection of tales about people who eat the animals they love, and the animals that love people unconditionally. A rabbit, a cat, a dog, a hen, and a pigeon share screen time with a wonderful ensemble of actors playing the residents of an apartment building, revealing the very small distance that separates us humans from animals. Despite a certain cruelty or disdain for the animals, the eventual love one finds in an animal companion is wonderful to witness in Sitaru’s masterfully written and choreographed film. **TUE. DEC 3, 8:30 pm, WRT U.S. Premiere!

The BucureȘti Experiment/experimentul bucurești Tom Wilson, 2013, Romania, 68m The less one knows about this clever and disturbing film (or documentary?), the better.

Directed by first-timer Tom Wilson, a British journalist living in Bucharest, The București Experiment daringly explores what really happened in 1989, when Romania suffered a coup d’état. The secret police knew about it and had time to prepare for the big change, setting in motion an experiment in psychological engineering. Following a participant to the experiment and his former partner (who used to be a famous pop

singer), Wilson goes way beyond any expectations in the way he actually interrogates the transition from Communism to Capitalism. It’s true, he plays a dangerous game with the audience, but to say why he wins would mean to spoil the startling revelations of his film.

In person: Director Tom Wilson **SAT. NOV 30, 5:00 pm, FBT & TUE. DEC 3, 2:00 pm, WRT U.S. Premiere!

Here… I Mean There/Aici… adică acolo Laura Căpățână-Juller, 2012, Romania 73m This deeply felt documentary is a brief but intimate portrait of a family split up by circumstances that leave little room for a brighter future. Ani and Sanda are two girls left with their grandparents because their parents abandoned them (like many Romanians) to go to Spain to earn money to build a house back home. Ten years later, the family is still broken and the house is far from being finished—but somehow, this is not as depressing as it sounds. It’s a bittersweet coming-of-age story, not without its funny moments, infused with nostalgia for a life the family should have had. **SAT. NOV 30, 7:15 pm, FBT & TUE. DEC 3, 4:00 pm, WRT Free screening!

New Romanian Shorts. Various; 116m The Chekhov-like Shadow of a Cloud by Radu Jude leads this eclectic bunch of seven shorts that also includes the Romanian answer to Kill Bill 12 Minutes and the hypnotic video-art Matriarch, featuring a striking Luminița Gheorghiu. Complete list below. **SAT. NOV 30, 1:30-5:30 pm (CONTINUOUS) & SUN. DEC 1, 7:15 pm, AMP • 12 minutes (12 minute), 2013, d. Nicolae Constantin Tănase • Bad Penny, 2013, d. Andrei Cretulescu • In the Fishbowl (În acvariu), 2013, d. Tudor Cristian Jurgiu • Matriarch, 2013, d. Nemethi Barna • My Baby, 2013, Luiza Pârvu • The Pill of Happiness (Pastila fericirii), 2012, d. Cecilia Felméri • Shadow of a Cloud (O umbră de nor), 2013, d. Radu Jude

Special screening! U.S. Premiere!

Three Exercises of Interpretation/Trois exercices d’interprétation Cristi Puiu, France, 2013, 157m This trilogy (The Cat is On the Chair, The Mouse is Under the Table, and The Monkey is On the Branch) focuses on a group of friends gathered for lunch and engaged in rich conversation covering life’s most complex moral topics. It emerged from an acting workshop led by director Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, 2005) in Toulouse and inspired by Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov’s treatise Three Conversations. In French with English subtitles. **SUN. DEC 1, 7:45 pm, FBT Free screening!

CRISTI PUIU DIRECTS the 2013 TIFF TRAILERS starring luminița gheorghiu; 30m In 2013, director Cristi Puiu was given carte blanche in creating the visual campaign of the Transilvania International Film Festival. Teaming with actress Luminița Gheorghiu, who was the face of the 2013 festival, he delivered not one, but 20 intriguing clips.

Watching them in sequence, they actually work like a short film which could be called A Woman’s Journey, Brief Encounters or even… The Red Shoes. The beauty of this strangely elliptical story is that it is open to multiple interpretations. **SUN. DEC 1, 3:00-4:30 pm & TUE. DEC 3, 7:00-8:30 pm(CONTINUOUS), AMP Special program: CREATIVE FREEDOM THROUGH CINEMA the transylvanians trilogy The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians is the first installment in the so-called Transylvanians’ trilogy, a hugely popular series made in the ‘80s. It’s a rare treat: a popular Red Western (or "Eastern") shot in Romania, telling the story of two Transylvanians who go to America – to the mining town of Cedar City, Utah – to persuade their brother to come back home, only to discover that he is the most wanted person in the region. The second film, The Actress, the Dollars and the Transylvanians, continues the American adventures of the three Transylvanian brothers, throwing in some more gunfights, bar brawls, train ambushes, bandits, Indians and a flamboyant cabaret actress. The last part of the trilogy, The Baby, the Oil and the Transylvanians, follows the three brothers on their way home, but having to settle in Swanton City, where the eldest of them finds oil while digging for water. The unavoidable clash between languages, music styles, and mentalities is as fun, campy and unusual as it gets. Propaganda films in communist Romania were never this inventive. In English and Romanian, with English subtitles.

NEW 35MM PRINT! The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians/Profetul, aurul si Ardelenii Dan Pița, 1979, Romania, 98m **FRI. NOV 29, 9:30 pm, WRT NEW 35MM PRINT! The Actress, the Dollars and the Transylvanians/Artista, dolarii şi Ardelenii Mircea Veroiu, 1981, Romania, 72m **SAT. NOV 30, 12:30 pm, FBT NEW 35MM PRINT! The Oil, the Baby and the Transylvanians/Pruncul, petrolul şi Ardelenii Dan Pița, 1982, Romania, 108m **SAT. NOV 30, 2:45 pm, FBT The Sun in a Net/Slnko v sieti Štefan Uher, 1962, Czechoslovakia, 90m Preceding the mid-60s vanguard known as the Czechoslovak New Wave, the second film

by Slovak director Štefan Uher did much to push the boundaries of acceptable Socialist Realism. The episodic narrative follows Fajolo (Marián Bielik) and Bela (Jana Beláková), a casual teenage couple at the end of the school year. As Fajolo heads to a mandatory work-camp for the summer, Bela grapples with the claustrophobia of her tense family life. As their lives overlap despite their separation, an existential portrait of this particular time begins to emerge. In Slovak with English subtitles. **SUN. DEC 1, 1:00 pm, FBT Larks on a String/Skrivánci na niti Jirí Menzel, 1969, Czechoslovakia, 100m Jirí Menzel’s (Closely Watched Trains, 1966) absurdist satire of authoritarian reeducation, the film manages to combine political critique with audacious celebrations of liberation. While filmed during the Prague Spring of 1968, which saw a loosening of authoritarian controls over Czechoslovak citizens, by the time of the film’s completion the Soviet Union had invaded the nation. The film was banned at the time, to be released only in 1990. In Czech with English subtitles. **SUN. DEC 1, 3:00 pm, FBT FREE EVENT! PANEL CONVERSATION Director Nae Caranfil (Closer to the moon) will be joined by film historian Dominique Nasta (author of the recent Contemporary Romanian Cinema. The History of an Unexpected Miracle), screenwriter Štepán Hulík (Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush), also author of Cinema of Forgetting on Czechoslovak cinema during the post-1968 ‘normalization period,’ and film curator Irena Kovarova in a conversation about the relationship between arts and politics, and the use of film as a propaganda tool then and now. **SUN. DEC 1, 5:00 pm, AMP corneliu porumboiu RETROSPECTIVE 12:08 East of Bucharest/a fost sau n-a fost?

Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006, Romania, 89m Winner of the 2006 Camera D’Or prize, this sociopolitical satire focuses on a group of characters who commemorate the 16th anniversary of Ceaușescu’s fall on on December 22, 2005. “12:08” refers to the exact time of day in which Ceaușescu fled, whereas the original Romanian title roughly translates as "Was There or Was There Not?" (a revolution in our town) – the central question being hotly debated throughout the film.

What seems like a formally simple and straightforward story is actually a sophisticated and wryly funny reflection on the scope of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 that ended communism in Romania, and how even recent historical events take on shape and meaning according to how they explain or justify the present. **MON. DEC 2, 1:00 pm, FBT Police, Adjective/Politist, adj.

Corneliu Porumboiu, 2009, Romania, 115m

This beautifully acted, modern morality play features what may be movie history’s most absurdly protracted police sting operation, designed to catch a high school student selling drugs. Cristi, the cop assigned to the case, realizes the futility of the mission, though his attempts to convince his bureaucratic superiors meet with stern reminders not to question the letter of the law. But letters and laws—of both the legal and grammatical kind—are very much on Porumboiu’s mind as the long, nearly wordless scenes of the film’s first half give way to a shadow-stopping final act of Stoppardian verbosity in which cop and police chief (an unforgettable Vlad Ivanov) engage in an exhilarating verbal tennis match about conscience, morality and the true meaning of language. **MON. DEC 2, 3:00 pm, FBT When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism/Când se lasĂ seara peste București sau metabolism See Closing Night above THE SHORT FILMS OF CORNELIU PORUMBOIU Various; 70m Much has been said about Corneliu Porumboiu’s three features to date, but it’s always rewarding to go back in time and search for more clues. Here’s the chance to see three of his short films in order to fully understand his personal style and vision about cinema: from the hilarious Gone with the Wine (2002) and A Trip to City (2003) – which won a prize in Cannes – to the haunting Liviu’s Dream (2004), which screened in the Forum section of the Berlinale. **SAT. NOV 30, 6:00-8:20 pm (CONTINUOUS), AMP FREE EVENT! BOOK LAUNCH: Contemporary Romanian Cinema. The History of an Unexpected Miracle Dominique Nasta, Professor of Film Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, will be present for the launch of her recently published book –Contemporary Romanian Cinema.

The History of an Unexpected Miracle (Wallflower Press, 2013). Bringing to light hidden gems, this compelling and extremely well-documented book draws connections between Romanian cinema's past and present, answering the most difficult question: how was the miracle of the New Wave possible? Nasta's analysis is simply the best work written so far on this subject. Romanian cinema, old and new, rightfully deserves this considered treatment. **SUN. DEC 1, 6:30 pm, AMP Film Society of Lincoln Center Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of the moving image. Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year's most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual NewYork City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, LatinBeat, New Directors/New

Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-vous With French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious "Chaplin Award." The Film Society's state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center,provide a home for year round programs and the New York City film community.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines, The New York Times, Stonehenge Partners, Stella Artois, illy cafĂŠ, the Kobal Collection, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

The Romanian Film Initiative (RFI) came together in 2012 to safeguard the existence and the spirit of the Romanian film festival in New York, redesigned as MAKING WAVES: New Romanian Cinema, and co-presented with the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Created by Corina Č&#x2DC;uteu, Mihai Chirilov and Oana Radu, the core team that initiated and organized the festival since 2006, RFI is an informal platform managed by Film ETC. Association in Bucharest. Along with the continuation and expansion of Making Waves, RFI aims to develop and contribute to other project aiming at the promotion of Romanian cinema in the U.S. www.filmetc.org Read more about Film Society of Lincoln Center Announces MAKING WAVES: New Romanian Cinema Line-Up Page 2- BWWMoviesWorld by www.broadwayworld.com http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmovies/article/Film-Society-of-Lincoln-CenterAnnounces-MAKING-WAVES-New-Romanian-Cinema-Line-Up-20131028

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By Kyoko Hirano /

www.shinjuku-shobo.co.jp/column/data/hirano/011.html

（11）今年も再びルーマニア映画

［2014/1/10］

猛母を通じて社会を描く

（12）さすが、ポーランド映画 ［2014/2/21］

（11）今年も再びルーマニア映画 ［2014/1/10］

（10）解体後の旧ユーゴ地域映画 ［2013/9/30］

（9）モルドヴァ、そしてソマリア へ

［2013/5/10］

（8）35年ぶりのブルガリア映画 ［2013/4/12］

（7）今年もまたルーマニア映画祭 ［2013/1/25］

（6）ユーゴの黒い波 ［2012/12/9］

（5）ユーゴ映画の１９８０年代 ［2012/8/17］

（4）アルバニア映画はこれだ ［2012/2/27］

（3）セルビア人は・・・ ［2012/1/16］

（2）今年もルーマニア映画祭 ［2011/12/28］

（1）ドキュメンタリーはすごい！ ［2011/11/28］

平野共余子（ひらの・きょうこ） 東京生まれ。1979年よりニューヨーク大学 映画研究科に留学、88年博士号修得。博士 論文は英語で92年に「Mr. Smith Goes To Tokyo: Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation 1945-1952」 (ス ミソニアン研究所出版)として、その後日本 語で98年『天皇と接吻 アメリカ占領下の 日本映画検閲』（草思社）として出版。86 年より2004年までニューヨークのジャパ ン・ソサエテイー映画部門で日本映画の上映 に携わり、この体験は06年に『マンハッタ ンのＫＵＲＯＳＡＷＡ 英語の字幕版はあり ますか？』（清流出版）となる。現在は日米 半々の生活。

１１月末、ＮＹのルーマニア映画祭の季節がめぐってきた。今年（2013）で８ 回目の「Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema(波を起こす・新しいルーマニ ア映画)」、今回はリンカーン・センターのほか、ＮＹ郊外のジェイコブ・バー ン・センターでも開催された。 今年の目玉はベルリン映画祭の最高賞である金熊賞を受賞し、アメリカの配給も 決まったカリン・ピーター・ネツアー監督の『子供の姿勢（Child’s Pose/Positia copilului）』だ。脚本は現代ルー マニアを代表するラズヴァン・ラ ザレスクとネツアー監督の共作。 冒頭、疎遠になった一人息子への 不満を、女友達に延々と喋るヒロ インのコーネリア（ルーマニアを 代表する女優ルミニツア・ゲオル ギウ）を捕らえるカメラが、彼女 の動きと対応してひっきりなしに 動き、不安で定まらない彼女の心 情を映し出す。建築家で舞台装置家の彼女は社会のエリートで、裕福な暮らしをし ている。誕生日パーティを大臣などの有力者たちとレストランで祝うが、息子の姿 はない。 ほどなく息子がブカレスト郊外で交通事故を起こし、１４歳の少年が死亡した知 らせをコーネリアは受け取る。そこから彼女の執念は、いかに息子を救うかという ことに けられる。スピード違反をしていたと認めた息子の自白や証人の言を、友 人や夫のコネ、財力を駆使して変えさせる。うんざりした夫が彼女の名前をもじっ て「コントローリア」と呼ぶように、彼女は周囲の人たちや状況を自分の思い通り にコントロールしなければ収まらないのだ。 慎ましい暮らしをしている被害者家族のことは全く意に介していなかった彼女 が、気に入らない息子の嫁にショッキングな告白をされ、息子にも面と向かって造 反され、被害者家族を前にして人間らしさを取り戻していくところで映画は終わ る。まったく絶望的に駄目な人間と思われていた息子も、最後に人間らしさを証明 する。 こうしたストーリーでは到底登場人物に同情できないのだが、クローズアップを 多用した息苦しいようなカメラワークにより、観る者は至近距離でコーネリアの顔 を見続け、彼女の表情の一喜一憂につきあわされる。しかも全編手持ちカメラで、 彼女の揺れ動き続ける心情とともに、観るものの心情も振幅する。その結果、彼女 も人間なのだという不思議な共感のようなものが観るものに沸いて来る。舞台出身 のゲオルギウの演技は、すごいと膝をたたいてしまう見事さだ。それとともに、弟 が家の建築許可で困っているから何とかしてくれないかとコーネリアに頼む刑事 や、金次第で証言を変えるという目撃者など、こすい人間の行動を通して、腐敗し た社会の現状が浮かび上がってくる。

映画監督の悩み 今やルーマニアを代表するコーネリウ・ポルンボイウ監督の新作『夕闇がブカレ ストを包む時、あるいはメタボリ ズム（When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism/Cand se lasa seara peste Bucuresti sau metabolism）』も今年の映 画祭で上映された。主演の映画監 督を演じたのは、前述『子供の姿 勢』でヒロインの息子役を演じて いたボグダン・ヂュミトラケであ る。夏のロカルノ映画祭、秋のト ロント映画祭、ニューヨーク映画祭で上映され、アメリカの配給も決まっている。 絶賛するアメリカの批評家も少なくない。ポルンボイウ監督の短編と前二作、『１ ２時８分、ブカレストの東』と『警察・形容詞』も今回回顧上映された。前二作を 高く評価する私には、新作にはいまいちのれなかった。非常に考え尽されたスタイ ルの映画で、男女が車内の運転席で映画についてのさまざまな会話をしているとこ ろを後ろから固定カメラでじっと撮っている長いショットから本作は始まる。次第 にこの二人が映画監督と主演女優であることがわかる。古今東西の名画の例を出 し、監督は現在製作中の映画の演出やデジタル映画とフィルムによる映画の比較な どについての話をしている。 次はレストランで、この二人の会話が続く。ここに監督の友人の青年が一瞬テー ブルに来て、また去っていく。このあたりで私は気持ちの良い眠りの世界に入って いき、気がつくと監督のアパートであった。監督が製作中の映画について苦吟して いる。そして女性の製作者を呼び、主演女優とリハーサルを何度もさせる。題名の 「メタボリズム」というのもとうとう私には理解できないまま終わった。多くのア メリカの評が、映画製作を主題にしている本作を、韓国の監督で毎回映画監督とそ の周囲の学生をテーマにした作品を撮るホン・サンスと比していたが、私は最近ホ ン・サンスには毎回「またか」という思いを抱き、その狭い世界観をまったく買え ない。ホン・サンスの映画にまつわる作品群もこのポルンボイウの作品も、映画製 作というテーマを通じて、人間について、社会について、何か新しい発見をさせて くれたとは思えない。映画製作を舞台にした映画で傑作は、フランソワ・トリュ フォーの『アメリカの夜』（７３）ぐらいかとあらためて思った。 レッド・ウエスタン 今回この映画祭で紹介された興味深いジャンルは、１９７０年代から１９８０年 代にかけて人気を博した“レッド・ウエスタン”である。これは共産主義の国の西部 劇という意味だ。アメリカの西部を舞台にしていながら、ルーマニア人たちが大活 躍するコミカルな活劇で、まさか アメリカまでロケに行けないので ルーマニア国内の山岳地帯で撮影 している。「トランシルヴァニア 人三部作」といわれる作品群の第 一作『預言者、金、そしてトラン シルヴァニア人たち(The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians/Profetul, aurul si Ardelenii)』（１９７９年、ダ ン・ピツア監督は共産党支配下で社会批判的映画を作ったことでも有名。このコラ

ム７号で、『石の婚礼』が紹介されている）を見たが、題名のつけ方からして、イ タリアのマカロニ・ウエスタン的である。南北戦争終了後２５年の１８９０年のユ タ州、金鉱の利益を独り占めし、妻が１５人、常に若い女性を狙う悪徳教祖が牛耳 る町で、それに立ち上がる主人公ジョニー・ブランドは何と（というかこれはルー マニア映画なので）やはりルーマニア人イオンのアメリカ名であった。 イオンを訪ねてその二人の兄弟がルーマニアから訪ねてくる汽車の中の場面で映 画は始まる。若いロミは英語を勉強中で、山羊の毛皮をまとった巨漢トライアンは 粗暴で英語などどこ吹く風だ。二人がわからない英語は、ロミの「辞書に載ってい ない」という言葉が繰り返されることも笑いの種となっている。近くに座る婦人は 偏見丸出しで、あの人たちはインデイアンかメキシコ人だろうかといぶかってい る。冒頭から、早くから来た移民のイギリス系白人を主体とするアメリカ人にとっ て、見慣れない習慣や風俗の「他者」に対する偏狭さへの風刺をしながら、スラッ プスティックな喜劇ともなっている。 遅れてきた移民への偏見というテーマは、１８９０年代のワイオミングを舞台 に、後から到着した東欧系移民が先住牧場主たちに迫害された実話“ジョンソン群 の戦争”を基にしたマイケル・チミノ監督の『天国の門』（８０）が思い起こされ る。同時に私は、アメリカ西部からオスマン・トルコの圧政下のマケドニアに渡 り、敵味方となって戦う兄弟を描くミルチョ・マンチェフスキーの新旧大陸を横断 する壮大な『ダスト』（０１）にも思いを馳せた。 トライアンはトルコと戦ったのが誇りで、オーストリア＝ハンガリー帝国下、オ スマン・トルコに反乱することを許されなかったが愛国者である自分は勇敢に戦っ たという台詞がある。そのような史実を私は知らなかったが、活劇映画のようなポ ピュラー・カルチャーで、自分たちのアイデンティティを保守した歴史に触れてい るのが興味深い。ルーマニア人、あるいはバルカン出身者たちがこの映画を観れ ば、さらにさまざまな隠喩を見出すのだろう。 アメリカ人批評家たちは、銃が支配する西部の金鉱とか新興宗教という、外国人 から見たアメリカ歴史文化の神話の描き方に関心を持っていた。さらにこのモルモ ン教の独裁者の描き方は、チャウシェスク独裁下のルーマニアのアレゴリーではな いかと言っている人もいた。イオンたちを助けるアメリカ人がいまだに南軍の制服 を着ている誇り高き元将校だが、その部下だった拳銃の名手は教祖側に雇われてい る。このあたりのアメリカの描き方も興味深いが、あくまで主役はイオンで、大活 躍するのはイオンとその兄弟である。 映画祭主催者の一人、オアナ・ラドュと話したら、この三部作の最後の作品はア メリカの西部でルーマニア人三兄弟がハンガリー移民と出会う場面があり、さらに 興味深いそうだ。チャウシェスク政府の下では国内の少数民族の話題はタブーだっ たので、ルーマニア人が隣人のハンガリー人といがみ合ったり、アメリカ人という 共通の敵を前に仲良くなったりする描写が、舞台をアメリカ、時間も過去のことに 移したことで可能になった。公開当時とても人気があり、その後何度もＴＶ放映も されているのでルーマニア人にとってはおなじみのこのシリーズも、実は何層もの いろいろな意味がしかけてあることを見つけて論ずることができるという。 家族離散のドキュメンタリー 家族離散についてのドキュメンタリー『ここ、いや、あそこ(Here… I Mean There/Aici… adica acolo)』は女性監督、ラウラ・カパツアナ＝ユラーによる。 フランクフルトでジャーナリズムとメデイアを学んだ後ルーマニアのＴＶで働いて いた彼女の処女作。以前、ルーマニアのモルドヴァ地方からイタリアに出稼ぎに行 き、残された夫と幼い子供たちの農村生活を描くドキュメンタリー『花の橋』を見 たが（このコラム９号で紹介している）、本作では幼い時に祖父母に預けられ、ス ペインに出稼ぎにいった父母を待つテイーンエジャーの姉妹を４年間にわたって描 く。出稼ぎは、体制崩壊後のルーマニアによく見られる現象である。しかも前述の

オアナによれば、モルドヴァ では女性が出稼ぎに行くこと が普通で、家計を女が支える ので夫は劣等感を持ち、また 別の問題が生じるという。 『ここ、いや、あそこ』の 姉妹の滞在する祖父母の家は 郊外にあり、隣に建てかけの レンガの家がある。両親が休 暇で帰るごとに、手作りで建 て続けているが、まだ外壁が 整った程度である。両親は、この家を完成させることが夢で、出稼ぎに行っている のだ。 インターネット時代で、姉妹はたびたび両親とスカイプで会話をし、電話もかけ あっているし、両親はしばしば段ボール箱いくつもの衣類を主体としたお土産をス ペインから送ってくる。祖父母も愛情深く姉妹を育てているようだが、それでも両 親不在の家庭は寂しく、姉妹は両親の帰宅を心待ちにしている。映画は全編、この 二人の姉妹の視点から描かれている。両親が戻ると４人家族は近くの街に出て、買 い物をしたりマクドナルドで食事をしたりする。それが本来の家族の姿だろうが、 離れて暮らさざるを得ないルーマニアの庶民の経済状態が伺える。最後は、涙なが らに寂しさを訴える妹の姿が痛々しい。 創造的自由 「映画の創造的自由」と題されたパネル討論もあったので、行ってみた。共産党 独裁体制の国々では、体制批判は検閲で禁止され、体制礼賛のプロパガンダ映画製 作が強要されていた。このパネル討論では、ルーマニアだけでなくチェコからの参 加も得て、討論に広がりがあった。ここで印象に残った発言を紹介しよう。 「一般にどの共産党政府も、共産党員のみがヒーローで人民を救う共産党礼賛の 国威高揚映画を国内では積極的に作らせていたが、国際映画祭で評価される国際的 な評判も必要だということがわかっていて、芸術的映画を作ることも容認してい た。」(ルーマニアのナエ・カランフィル監督) 「チェコスロヴァキア国内では、軽喜劇が常に人気であった。アート映画の観客 は今でも総計５万人ぐらいだろうか。」（チェコの２０代の脚本家シュテパン・フ リク） 「（ミロシュ・フォアマンなどの）チェコ派の映画はチェコスロヴァキア国内で はほとんど見ることができず、主に海外で見られていた。共産党政府が倒れてから すぐ、１９９０年に『スーパーマン』をチェコで見て、最後にスーパーマンがアメ リカ国旗を手に空を飛ぶシーンを見て、ハリウッドにもプロパガンダが存在するこ とを感じた。」（チェコの映画キューレター、イレナ・クジャロヴァ） 「ルーマニアが共産圏の中でチェウシェスクの下、特異なものであったというこ とを、ルーマニアの映画史をひもといてあらためて認識した」（ルーマニア出身の 映画史家、ドミニク・ナスタ） 「こうしたパネル討論もある種のプロパガンダだ。アメリカや西欧ではみな言論 の自由があると信じているが、それは権力を脅かさない限りという条件付で、アメ リカの“オキュパイ・ウオールストリート”の運動やイギリスの環境運動に過剰反応 する権力側を見ればそれが判る。」（ルーマニアで映画を１０数年撮っているイギ リス人のトム・ウイルソン） 命題があまりに大きくて、全体的まとまりには欠けた討論だったが、上記のよう に個々の発言はおもしろかった。

期待されなかった奇跡 パネル討論に引き続き、ドミニク・ナスタの新著『現代ルーマニア映画―期待さ れなかった奇跡の歴史(Contemporary Romanian Cinema: The History of an Unexpected Miracle』（コロンビア大学出版）が 紹介されるプログラムにも行ってみた。ナスタは ルーマニア生まれ、１９８４年、大学生の時に家族 とともに祖母の出身地ベルギーに亡命し、彼の地で 映画学の博士号を取得、ブルッセル芸術大学で映画 学を講じている。 本著の副題の「期待されなかった」という意味 は、海外では、ポーランド、チェコ、ハンガリー、 旧ユーゴの映画は国際的に注目され高く評価されて いたが、誰も注目していなかったルーマニアから２ ００５年から２００８年にかけて国際映画祭を凌駕 する作品が次々と登場したという意味だそうだ。 「ルーマニア・ニュー・ウエイブ」といわれるこの 動きは突然登場したわけではなく、それに先行する 歴史があるという彼女の主張に、私は全面的に賛成 である。私が見ることができた独裁時代のルーマニア映画は２０数本だが、それで も「こんな苛酷な体制の中、すごい映画が作られていた」と感嘆する作品が少なく なかったのだ。 ナスタは、独裁時代から芸術的な独自のスタイルを持った映画で国際的に知られ るルシアン・ピンテイリエ監督は若い世代の心のよりどころであり、フランスの ヌーヴェル・ヴァーグにとってのジャン・ルノワールのような存在だと語ったのは 興味深かった。そしてナスタは続ける。クリステイ・ピウイ監督の『ラザレスクの 死』を見たとき、その新鮮なパワーに圧倒されながら、ピウイの手持ちカメラの使 い方は、ピンテイリエの映画の中の主人公の心理描写で使われていた手持ちカメラ のスタイルなどのそれまでのルーマニア映画で見た手法だと思ったと。今のルーマ ニア映画にも多い手持ちカメラはなるほど、独裁時代の野心的作品に源を発してい たらしい。 それでは、手持ちカメラの特徴は何だろうか。常に揺れる画像は、安心感を見る 者に与えない。しかも即興性を重んじ、事前に用意したことだけでなく、目の前に 展開する事象に敏感に、臨機応変に反応するスタイルだ。それはやはり全てを事前 に統制する独裁制になじまないことが容易の想像できる。 国際的に評価が高い「ルーマニア・ニュー・ウエイブ」の成功の要因は、ほかの 欧州の国から主要な動きがでてきていなかったこと、人間性に満ちた日常生活のリ アリテイを描きながら、多様性に満ちた作品群であること、西欧ばかりから何かが いつも起こされてきたが、東欧から出てきた新しい動きであったことで注目され た、と３つナスタは要因をあげた。 本書の中で、『４ヶ月３週間と２日』のクリスチャン・ムンジウ監督を「広範囲 の現象」と定義していることについて観客からの質問に対して、著者のナスタは、 映画キャンペーンをルーマニアの地方で実現するなどの戦略にも関わり、映画の作 品を越えた存在といえるムンジウの特異性を挙げた。 今注目されるルーマニア映画について、ルーマニア語では本が何冊か刊行されて いるが、本著は英語では初めての本だという。まさに待望の著作である。私もその 場で本を買い、ナスタ先生にサインしてもらった。早速読んでみたが、ルーマニア の歴史や文化に特有な事象、独裁制の政治制度と社会状況を丁寧に説明しながら、 注目に値する個々の作品の社会的文化的意義と映画表現の新しさを、フォアマン、 カサヴェテスやダルデンヌ兄弟など世界で知られる東欧の監督や欧米の重要な作家 と比較しながら論ずる野心的なものであった。