PRINTCatch the new wave of film in ... Romania?
Courtesy of IFC Films
April 24, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Imagine living in a world where daily items such as perfume and medication are sold on the black market, a pregnant woman cannot get an abortion and a communist dictator is in his last days of power.
This is the world that director Cristian Mungiu brings to viewers in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (currently playing at Ragtag Cinema), one of a growing number of Romanian films that have received top honors at Cannes and other film festivals in the past three years.
These films have not only won awards but also have challenged Romania’s political notions and its history. The filmmakers have lived under both communism and democracy and have a viewpoint unlike many other directors and writers. Their brutal authenticity is a stark contrast to Hollywood’s glossy, saccharine dramas.
Mungiu’s movie, which won Cannes’ top award — the Palme d’Or — in 2007, is one of several Romanian films to gain worldwide attention after Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu won a noteworthy prize at 2005’s Cannes festival and was subsequently shown in theaters across the globe.
Puiu’s film broke the dam. Since then, several Romanian films have won numerous awards and received worldwide consideration.
Still, these Romanian films have more in common than their success. Their filmmakers, mostly of a younger generation that has lived both under Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist regime and the democratic government that followed, have a cinematic vision that is revolutionary for Romanian film.
New York Times film critic A.O. Scott says there is an immediate, realistic quality to the way Romanian film unfolds. “There is an ethic of honesty,” Scott says. “They want to tell not necessarily true stories but stories truthfully.”
He adds that these films are often characterized by long camera shots, a focus on small details and a minimal use of music. In The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, a handheld camera is used, and the viewer has the impression he or she is following the title character. There are no sweeping close-ups and music only plays during the credits.
Scott says many use the word “minimalism” to describe these techniques. “But that’s a little bit misleading because the stories are very rich and complex,” he says.
Several of the films, including 4 Months, The Way I Spent the End of the World and 12:08 East of Bucharest, deal with Romania’s communist past, and it isn’t surprising considering the dramatic contrast of life under the two governments.
Christina Zarifopol-Illias, professor of Romanian history and language at Indiana University-Bloomington, says these films represent a way to deal with the horrible realities that filmmakers had seen or heard about under communism.
“More than 10,000 women died because of these (illegal) abortions,” Zarifopol-Illias says. “(Filmmakers) were moved that such a thing could happen.”
Although Romanian film is just now becoming known in international circles, it was well-established long before now. Older generations of Romanian filmmakers even attempted to address issues of the communist regime, says Corina Suteu, director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York City.
However, Marina Cap-Bun, professor of comparative literature at Ovidius University in Romania, writes in an e-mail that she felt many of the films directed earlier under the Ceausescu regime lacked the directness of current Romanian films.
“During communism, storytelling and films were rather inclined to the oneiric, fantastic modes, in order to tell allegorically something that was not possible to be told directly,” writes Cap-Bun. “This impossibility to tell the truth is probably responsible for this taste of realism associated with the new Romania.“
However, a lack of infrastructure within the country has prevented Romanian film even from reaching some of its native audiences. Scott, who visited Romania in November of 2007, says there are fewer than 100 screens in a country of more than 22 million.
In a nation with a still-developing economy, it often can be difficult to find funding to make films. The state does offer some support; in some cases the National Council of Cinematography has financed as much as 50 percent of a film’s production, Scott says.
“It’s not a commercial system where you have studios or you have companies that can make big profits and then reinvest them,” he adds.
However, Mungiu’s winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes seems to be a testament that even with small budgets, Romanian film is thriving.
“There are more people getting involved,” Scott says. “It’s become sort of a hotbed of creative activity.”
