Dir. Cristian Nemescu, Romania, 2007, 155 mins, English/ Romanian/
Spanish/Italian with subtitles
Cast: Armand Assante, Razvan Vasilescu, Ion Sapdaru, Maria
Dinulescu
Review by Carol Allen
You might well think that at some two and
a half hours, the bit in brackets refers to the length of
the film. But it has a far more poignant explanation. In
August 2006 27 year old Nemescu and his sound editor Andrei
Toncu were killed in a road accident on their way home from
editing the film. Nemascu had made several highly praised
short films. This is the untouched cut of his feature film
debut, as it was left, when he died so tragically young.
He would almost certainly have tightened
it up a bit, as this intriguing and unusual film does tend
to meander somewhat.The story, set in 1999 and based on and
expanded from a true life incident, concerns a detachment
of American soldiers transporting a top secret radar system
through Romania for use against the Serbian bombings of Kosovo.
Though they have permission from the Romanian government,
they do not have the usual legal customs documents and when
they get to the village of Capaltina, the local station master
Doiaru (Vasilecu) uses that fact to bring the train to a
grinding halt and the Americans are stranded.
This has some of the elements of a communist era comedy
of bureaucracy, as the buck is passed from one uncaring official
in Bucharest to another, while in Capaltina Doiaru sticks
stubbornly to his guns in the face of entreaties from the
frustrated American in charge Captain Jones (Assante). But
this is new capitalist Romania. Doiaru, who has the local
police in his pocket, is creaming off part of every load
that goes through his station in his own version of private
enterprise. The workers in the local factory, which Dioaru
is hoping to buy at a low price, are striking for decent
wages. The Mayor (Sapdaru) sees this as an opportunity to
attract publicity and much needed investment to the village
and lays on a couple of lavish parties to entertain the Americans
as they wait, while the local girls see it as a chance to
nab themselves American husbands and a new life in the West.
The only one who gets close is Dioaru's rebellious and pretty
daughter Monica (Dinulescu), who enjoys a romantic liaison
with Jones's young aide David (Jamie Elman), which literally
puts the lights out all over Bucharest.
While all this is quirkily amusing - one of the highlights
of the village party is a Romanian Elvis Presley impersonator
- there is a darker, more political side to the story, which
evokes some sympathy for the corrupt and bullying Doiaru,
as we discover in flashbacks to World War II, when he was
a small boy, that he nurses a deep resentment against the
Americans for failing to arrive in time to rescue him and
his parents from the Nazis and then the Communists. And when
Jones gets drawn into the community's rebellion against Dioaru
but fails to follow through on his promise, the Romanians
are once again tragically let down by America. As an ironic
postscript we learn that their cargo got to its destination
two hours after the cease fire was declared, too late to
be of any assistance to the Kosovans.
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