User Reviews

I mean slasher cause after you see it, you reach for a razor blade to slash your wrist. When all Hollywood movies have a happy ending, Romanian movies have a "kill-myself" ending, haven't seen a single Romanian movie made after '89 that had a happy ending, oh well .. maybe "Asphalt Tango" had a quasi-happy ending.

Back on topic, Nae Caranfil manages to capture the 1911 Bucharest atmosphere very accurate. An old civilized world, without vulgar language and gratuitous violence, a time when honor and social statute where extremely important, a time when falling in disgrace of a member took the whole family down with it. Also a world on the dawn of a new era, when corruption started to spread and con-artists began to thrived.

What strikes me is that this is not a movie about making a movie, but a love story that takes place while making a movie. Its that kind of movie that makes you think about it days after you see it ! Is Emilia a lead character ? No ! Did she influenced dramatically the lives of the male lead characters ? Definitely yes ! Director Nae Caranfil manages to tell a story within a story which in my opinion this makes hes best movie, one of the best Romanian movies in fact.

One minor criticism : German soldiers, which actually where not even Germans as the caption said, they where in fact Austria-Hungarian soldiers, their uniforms looked like Wehrmacht World War II uniforms, especially the combat helmets. Austria-Hungarian helmets had a small sharp vertical spike on top of the helmet. Im not a history buff to dwell on that too much.

**** SPOILER INCOMING ****

Emilia character, played masterfully by Mirela Zeta, at first looks like its not fully developed as a character, her story has plot holes and loose ends but thats intentional, how can you portray a female character accurate when shes's lying as often as she breathes. She's not a peasant girl that lives in the city as she said in the harvest dance scene. At that time no peasant girl would dare leaving to the city and returning as she pleased without her father beating her senseless. I suspect she was a stowaway among the extras trying to get noticed as an actress by the young director or anyone in the movie industry by a matter of fact. She lies and screws everyone and with everyone that can help her achieve her goal: to become and actress. And she did became an actress, in a theater bought by Leon character for her, in a time where he dint afford that eccentricity. She has a son, who is the father ? Plot hole ? No, it doesn't matter whos the father, mostly because even she doesn't know.

Five years passes and the young director Grigore still didn't forget her. He founds a portrait of her, he takes it and he keeps it tight in hes arms like in an embrace. Definitely he loved her more than he shows throughout the whole movie, which fits very well in that age of time, when men didn't showed so transparently how they felt. He loves and hates her at the same time, which can be seen in the scene near the end when he throws a glass of water on her painting in a dual gesture: he threw a glass of water on her face first time she met her and he also threw a glass of water in her face last time he saw her, marking the beginning and the end.

Which leads to the final scene: Grigore character doesn't lie in court because Leon actions harmed her ! He lies to punish Leon because he had her.

Well done Mr. Caranfil ! Bravo !

After 5 years of patience we have another film made by Nae Caranfil. In my opinion by far the best film director Romania has in this moment. If Filantropica represented a renascence for the Romanian Cinema now we know it was not an exception. I don't know if it is his strategy or simply the guys from the commission simply didn't want to finance him all these years, lets not forget that this films scenario was written like 20 years ago and only in 2007 it became reality. I have to admit that we are sick of seeing films about the "Golden Era" or directly made in the communist times. I don't mean 4,3 and 2 at all, that's a great film made by a great director but I want to see more films made about the great times of our country if not the inter-war period this story is placed perfectly before the First War or the Great War as they called it during and after it. And I don't mean maybe all of us all, I mean us, the young…the ones that heard all those criminal stories from our parents, of course its OK to see it on screen but where are those glory days of our Romanian Kingdom? Just seeing images that bring back to those times makes you feel different then seeing a secret service agent following you at night coming from a party a bit drunk and makes you see something else then the gray boxes and the House of People. The young Romanians need to take those times as an example. Of course it's a comedy after all, but all we know is how Romanians were driving all Dacia 1310 ( proudly ) hailing the "leader" and now after 1989 showing stories about the life then from another point of view, an objective one. Back to the film, the scene with the King is a very nice one, if all communist showed was the Morometii when the peasants were laughing at the royals ( romance by Marin Preda clearly influenced by the communists ) now we can actually see people calling him "Sir", I was really surprised by that scene ( probably at the Cotroceni Palace ) maybe just because of rarity of such scenes with important leaders of our past. Even though its still a comedy it tries to represent a very important part of our history. The war for Independence against the Otoman Empire strongly supported by a leader ( Carol I ) witch wasn't even Romanian, he was part of the Royal European family but dedicated his life to this country like nobody else of Romanian blood did in the last century. The young director who wants to do something new rather then theater is fighting his father who was a well know theater director who didn't accept his son to do "dirty business". It also has a very important word to say with our relation with Western Europe, we wanted to be in the same step with them, we didn't want to completely ignore what happens in Paris and the thing the young gun ( only 19 ) starts something like this shows the new generation is responsible even now, after 1989, to bring this country back to its glory days.

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.