Or, of course, half empty.
I had been waiting for a while for this movie. Really liked Nae Caranfil's other films - especially his last one, Filantropica, a dark and cynical comedy that manages to be both original, funny and thought-provoking.
Now, this one is different. Not that it's bad - but it's "serious". It's about the first (or one of the first) movies ever made in Romania, about the war of independence with the Turks. The action is set in 1911, and the events depicted in the "film in the film" had happened some 35 years earlier.
The film does avoid the most basic traps - like being overly patriotic. But in my opinion it does not avoid the "folklore" reconstitution of the early 20th century Bucharest. It has all the expected clichés all Romanians know about - like Bucharest supposedly being then a "little Paris".
It has some standard characters - "the young idealist", "the hot actress", "the patron of the arts", ... none of which are very believable. It has some pretty heavy metaphors - the "hot actress" gets sprinkled with water twice in the movie, only to die in a fire towards the end ... come on...
It also has its good moments. I liked the old generals quarreling about who arrived first on the battle scene, and loved the scene with the King to whom in is explained that the film's director is a kind of an accountant! Another one I liked was the projection of the Independence movie - a bunch of elderly gentlemen in fancy suits getting all excited watching the battle scenes, almost like at a soccer game!
I could have ended right there. Unfortunately, it did not - it goes on for another half hour, probably to provide information about the fate of the "film in the film" and of those who made it. And the very last scene nails it to the ground - an actor saying "the rest is silence". Could have included himself in that...
So, overall, a disappointment, maybe because I was expecting too much.
I had been waiting for a while for this movie. Really liked Nae Caranfil's other films - especially his last one, Filantropica, a dark and cynical comedy that manages to be both original, funny and thought-provoking.
Now, this one is different. Not that it's bad - but it's "serious". It's about the first (or one of the first) movies ever made in Romania, about the war of independence with the Turks. The action is set in 1911, and the events depicted in the "film in the film" had happened some 35 years earlier.
The film does avoid the most basic traps - like being overly patriotic. But in my opinion it does not avoid the "folklore" reconstitution of the early 20th century Bucharest. It has all the expected clichés all Romanians know about - like Bucharest supposedly being then a "little Paris".
It has some standard characters - "the young idealist", "the hot actress", "the patron of the arts", ... none of which are very believable. It has some pretty heavy metaphors - the "hot actress" gets sprinkled with water twice in the movie, only to die in a fire towards the end ... come on...
It also has its good moments. I liked the old generals quarreling about who arrived first on the battle scene, and loved the scene with the King to whom in is explained that the film's director is a kind of an accountant! Another one I liked was the projection of the Independence movie - a bunch of elderly gentlemen in fancy suits getting all excited watching the battle scenes, almost like at a soccer game!
I could have ended right there. Unfortunately, it did not - it goes on for another half hour, probably to provide information about the fate of the "film in the film" and of those who made it. And the very last scene nails it to the ground - an actor saying "the rest is silence". Could have included himself in that...
So, overall, a disappointment, maybe because I was expecting too much.