I was writing a while ago that when Quentin Tarantino was making Inglorious Basterds he was not so much making a film about the Second World War and the Holocaust, but more a Tarantino film that happens during the Second World War and happens to have the Holocaust as a subject. Would this be a fair characterization of Jean-Pierre Melville’s L’Armee des Ombres (Army of Shadows)? Is this merely a Melville film which says more about the director than about the war and the French Resistance?
source www.cinemapassion.com
Well, not really. It is true that L’Armee des Ombres has a very strong Melville touch. Made at the pick of the maturity of the director, it has an amazing familiar look with Le Cercle Rouge made one year later, the gangster story that was shown two weeks ago at the Herzlya Cinematheque, and about which I wrote about on the blog at that time. We are in familiar territory, with the director focusing on the characters and letting his splendid actors all the freedom they need to create great roles. His heroes have their own code of honor, and although we do not know much about who they are and where they come from we are led to recognize and respect their motivation and deeds, even when they may seem questionable on the sale of the accepted morality. There is also shared scenery between the two films – deserted roads and empty streets which seem a visual style mark of Melville.
And yet, there are more differences than similarities in my opinion. For Melville the Second World War and the Resistance were not just another theme, but a period that he lived through and a cause he participated actively in – to the point that a scene that seems completely benign today with De Gaulle decorating the fighting heroes of the Resistance let to a great outrage from some political circles and critics in a year 1969 when De Gaulle was close to the end of his political career and perceived as a conservative or even ‘reactionary’ president. Making a story about a group of fighters making the hard choices and putting in danger their own lives to do what is maybe today the obvious, but what so few people did in the real history is not just another heroic story about the war. It shows that war means not only risking own life, but also crossing the limits of accepted morality. The code of honor of the characters in this film exceeds the common judgment. While the behavior of the characters in permanent hiding and playing cat-and-mouse games with the Gestapo may remind the behavior of the heroes in the gangster movies of Melville, their motivation is totally different.
The story building in this film is not the best. The underground work of a group of fighters of the Resistance led by Luc Jardie (the actor Paul Meurisse), Philipe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), and Mathilde (Simone Signoret) is followed in the interval of an year, between 1942 and 1943. The plot has many points of discontinuity filled in by off-screen comments, and building the story is not really what seems to have interested Melville. His focus was on the situations, on the permanent tension and danger the characters live in, on the choices that they must make which are never easy – killing a traitor, risking their lives to save an imprisoned comrade, commit suicide or kill their fellows if their lives cannot be saved and endanger the continuation of the fight. There is only one choice which is not questioned – the choice to fight which seems out of doubt the right thing that needs to be done. The magnificent opening scene with the German soldiers parading on Champs Elysees is the moral background for everything that happens afterward. The defeated and humiliated France had to fight back. The question about why so few did the obvious was postponed by Melville for a film that he never got to make.
Beside the opening there are many other memorable scenes in the film – mostly built on the relations between the characters and on the acting of all the actors in the team. Shining over the whole distribution are Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret, two splendid actors belonging to a golden generation of the French cinema who helas is gone now. Their presence enriches a film which stays in memory for many reasons.
Something is happening to Woody Allen … or to me … not clear exactly what, but I started to like more his latest films. His 2010 production screened at Cannes seems to have been seen by very few people, and if I hurry I may be the first viewer to post a review at IMDB. It will be released in October in Israel, and last night I saw it at a pre-screening at the Herzlya Cinematheque.
source www.imdb.com
With this film Allen is back in England, but there is very little Britishness in this movie excepting the setting and the opening quote of Shakespeare. To the same extent the story could have happened in Manhattan, or some other corner of Allenland. The quote that I mentioned is about the meaning of life, and it leaves nothing to fate or to higher goals in our lives, but rather a lot to chance and to trying to find a support that makes us overcome hurdles, any support, be it a dream, or a cheap superstition, or even a cheat. The Tall Dark Stranger in the title can be a handsome male the women in the movie dream about, or maybe the dark end that expects each of us at the finish line.
Each of the characters in the film finds his own cheat or lie or fraud to rely upon. Helena Shepridge (wonderful British actress Gemma Jones) is abandoned by her husband Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and finds refuge and advice in a fake fortune-teller who tells her what she wants to hear. If her fortune-teller is real, the other characters can be said to have private virtual fortune-tellers of their own. Alfie marries a prostitute half his age in a vain attempt to win back his lost youth, just to find himself deceived as expected. Helena’s daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) fantasizes about an affair with her rich boss gallery owner (Antonio Banderas). Her husband, Roy (Josh Brolin) unsuccessfully tries to sell his second novel, then fate and fraud combine to help him make an apparent jump ahead which allows him to cheat on his wife and dare date the neighbor in the near-by building which he observes in a Peeping Tom manner that allows Allen to quote Hitchcock. Each of the character has ups and downs, actually more downs then ups, but we are in Woody Allen movies, nobody is really hungry, suffering is existential, and despite all problems in life there is always money for good meals and whiskey.
The story can actually end at any point in time, ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later. Each of the characters goes through convulsions of fate, but the story and the film must end, as everything ends, but do not look for meanings about the ending, it just ends. The combination of skillful story telling and abrupt ending works well. As the end is not served on the tray it is the spectator who needs to fill it in with some meaning, if there is a meaning. Yet, the overall impression is of having seen a piece of life as Woody Allen understands life, and it is funny and well acted, as the actors seem comfortable enough in Woody Allen’s films, they like acting here, and in some cases they give some of the best roles (I liked the performances of Brolin, Jones and Watts).
There are little things that I know about the next year (no fortune telling skills, sorry), but one if them is that for sure there will be a new film by Woody Allen on the screens. Maybe it will be about a director making one movie each year, I do not know. Chances are that I will like it.
Uri Klein, the film critic of Ha’Aretz chose to open yesterday his short presentation of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Circle Rouge (The Red Circle) with a short appearance of the director in Godard’s Au Bout de Souffle. Melville is in this sequence Parvulesco, an exiled Romanian writer, answering in the Orly airport to questions posed by journalists among which young and beautiful Patricia (Jean Seaberg). We see him as maybe he was in real life, detached, amused, preoccupied more by the pleasures of life and by women than by existential questions, a little bit like a visitor playing a role of observer of the world around.
Melville whom we can see in a real interview in the sequence above talking in 1970 about his fascination for cinema was indeed a strange appearance in the landscape of the French cinema. Born in a Jewish family he got his first camera at the age of six. He fought in the Resistance and the period of the war was one of the two big themes of his cinema. The other one were his gangster movies, which included the classic Le Samourai, maybe Alain Delon’s best role, film which inspired Gost Dog, the film I love most in Jim Jarmusch’s cinema until now. Melvilled died at a relative young age, and left only 12 movies, but many of these were exquisite. He brought to the French cinema the shady and ambiguous atmosphere of the great American thrillers of the 40s and 50s, bringing the gangster movies at the same level as the traditional French art cinema. He led a lonely life, he at some point in time he bought a studio in which he not only made films but he also lived, film-making being not only his profession, but also his way of life and his permanent obsession.
source www.imdb.com
Le Cercle Rouge is a typical story for Melville’s cinema. His characters are gangsters and policemen, who while fighting the eternal wars one against the other share the same behavior and honor code, with rules of themselves, rules out of the books of rules, rules which do not request many words to be explained and followed. They also share the same dressing code, wearing the same trench-coats borrowed from the requisite of Humphrey Bogart.
Le Cercle Rouge brings to screen one of the exquisite teams of actors that could be gathered in a French film at that time. Alain Delon is in his natural element in the role of the gangster Corey, who just released from jail is dragged in a sophisticated jewelry theft. Delon is paired with Gian Maria Volonte who is in this film Vogel, the gangster on the run, whom Corey will recognize and who he will recognize as a fellow that destiny decided to meet together on the Red Circle (a Buddhist concept all invented by Melville for people that fate decides to put on the same track). They say that Volonte did not really cope well with the freedom that Melville used to give to his actors, I do not know if this is true, but nothing is to be seen on screen, and the Italian actor fits perfectly in the dynamics and relations of the film. Yves Montand completes the trio on the bad side of the law with a role which is smaller in words and screen time, but extremely exact and with a performance to remember. It is in the role of the cop that Melville made his most daring casting, selecting one of the greatest comic actors of France ever – Bourvil – in a completely dramatic role. This role was even more memorable taking into account that this was the last in his career.
Le Cercle Rouge is a well told story which survives well the four decades since its making due to the consistent art of the director, and to the remarkable acting of its stars, who meld well into the film, playing their characters and not themselves. At a time when the American genres like the westerns and the gangster movies were making their way into the European cinema, Melville and his film are almost typical examples of the moment. A few years later it was the European art cinema which made its way back refreshing the themes and the genres in Hollywood. The dialog between the two cinema schools continues, to the delight of the film fans from all over.
This is the first film of Radu Mihaileanu that really did it to me. It is moving, I resonated with the subject, I laughed when it was funny and I was close to tears when it meant to be emotional. Yet, as his previous films, it is not a masterpiece just a good film to remember. Which is no small matter either.
source www.imdb.com
Mihaileanu’s previous films were each of them based on original and different ideas. in each of those the ideas hold above the execution. Train de vie was one of the first films to deal with Holocaust from a comic perspective, and maybe the most interesting idea of all, better even as Begnini’s maybe. Les pygmees de Carlo dealt with the communication between cultures in an unusual way. Vas, viens, et deviens is the only movie until now to deal with the Ethiopian immigration to Israel. Here, in ‘Le Concert’ two main ideas dominate the action. One is about the new culture of vulgarity and mediocrity that dominates the life after the fall of the Communism. The main hero (wonderfully acted by Aleksei Gluskov) is a great conductor. His life and career were broken during the Communist rule for having opposed the regime of Brezhnev. Yet, the change of the social order did not put him back in place, as the collaborators of the old regime and the new oligarchs took the place of the rulers, siding the real values. The second idea is that music redeems, transcends politics, and is worth any risks and sacrifices.
‘Le Concert’ is correspondingly divided into two parts. The first one is a brilliant comedy, one of the best that I have seen lately. It is based on stereotypes one may argue, the stereotype of the Russians and French, of the Jews and Gypsies, of musicians and impresarios, Communists and oligarchs, but in these case they work, and the result is true and funny. The Russian orchestra of former musicians, sided away by the new times makes it to Paris under the label of the Bolshoi to give the concert of their lives, the proof that Tchaikovsky, and Russian music, and value are still there despite all. Then the second part begins, the one in which all becomes personal, with a seemingly love story which turns to be something completely different, a much more dramatic story in which music is not only revenge but also personal redemption, is not only survival but also coming from beyond the graves of a tragic history.
This is were the strength and the weakness of Radu Mihaileanu’s art meet. All the film converges to the final scene, the one of the concert in Paris, we know it from the beginning. All the explanation will be present in that scene, and this is the bet and the risk of any music film in the history of cinema. The result is only a partial win. Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin provides the appropriate background, and the emotional result is immediate. The doubts start after the screening ends. The situation is certainly less than credible, from an intrigue and musical point of view. Mihaileanu’s execution is too direct, he plays too much on short term emotions, tears are too apparent. He has huge ideas, and one day he may turn them into one or more great movies. ‘Le Concert’ is too explicit, it lacks the patience and the sophistication to be that one .
‘Zohi Sdom’ which is translation means ‘That’s Sodom’ deliberately places itself at the intersection between the very popular Israeli TV show ‘Eretz Neederet’ (Wonderful Country) and the big screen British Monty Python movies of historical and Biblical inspiration. The Israeli weekly shows are a local version of ‘Saturday Night Live’ bringing at their best some of the sharpest political, social and typological satire in a country that provides endless sources of humor and badly needs laughs to cope with a myriad of problems and conflicts that seem to be unsolvable other than in a comical fantasy. A permanent team of actors usually play all the roles in the show, in a collection of sketchers interleaved with permanent features, which were abandoned here, as was the newsreel format in the favor of the Biblical story parody. The British show was starting with the end of the 60s the source of inspiration of all other comical and satirical TV series all over the world (including the American SNL) and also pioneered the transcription to the wide screen with anthology successes that seldom have been equaled by other similar shows world-wide.
The too close following of the sources of inspiration may be the cause for which the big screen movie does not really work. Although the idea is quite cool (the TV anchor in the original show is a cynical God attracting patriarch Abraham into the trap of the Holy Contract while preparing the destruction of the sin city of Sodom) and the story works better that you would expect, there are many laughs during the screening, but none is hysterical. The TV stars do in the movie of the same that they do in the TV show, just the screen is bigger, and some of them do not look as well on the big screen as in the TV box (the otherwise beautiful and talented Alma Zack for example, or Orna Banai who gets a very insignificant role and little screen time). Best are the street scenes depicting the life in Sodom, and here the references to reality nowadays work well. However, the exaggerated adherence to the Monty Python formula (including the insertion of music and dances) provide a (maybe unintended) air of detachment and diminish the acuity of the social and political comments which make the original show interesting for the majority of its viewers.
Released at the pick of the summer season ‘Zohi Sdom’ will certainly be a huge hit in Israel this year. I am less convinced that it will survive as an outstanding movie beyond this summer.
The Chess Players is the only film of Ray which ventures deep into a different culture – the one of the Muslim kingdom of Oudh, and is spoken in the Urdu language. Filmed on location in Lucknow it describes the end of the last Muslim fief in India in 1856, going deep into the social and cultural causes of the fall of the kingdom. It is a work of great psychological and cinematographic beauty, also the most expensive film ever made by Ray. The famous Indian writer V.S. Naipul was quoted comparing this film with a Shakespeare play, and the comparison is not exaggerated.
There are two apparently distinct threads in the film. One is the historical story of the deposing of the last king of Oudh, Wajid Ali Shah (played by Amjad Khan). He is described in the film as a fascinating mix of corruption and sensitivity, of debauchery and resignation. Ray had ambivalent feelings to this character, which is on one side a symbol of the decay of remains of the Mogul empire, but on the other side has an internal dignity and continues a tradition and a way of life which is misjudged and completely mis-understood by his enemies. The opposing camp of the British is represented by general Outram (Richard Attenborough), the archetype of the colonial conqueror, misjudging and downplaying the culture of his opponents. The dialogs between the two are fascinating. They use a translator, and the translation is rigorously accurate. Yet, the true meaning gets often lost in translation. The dialog between cultures needs to take place much above the dictionary.
The second thread is the one of the chess players. Two friends, belonging to the aristocracy of the kingdom spend all their time, days and nights playing chess. They play it the old way, they are proud that the game invented in India (and not in Persia!) spread all over the world, and although they hear that the British had changed some rules they ignore the changes. By love for the game they ignore everything around – their affairs, their wives, the dangers that threaten their kingdom and mode of life. Chess becomes the central obsession of their lives and the central obsession of the film, a symbol of the tradition and refinement of their civilization, but also of the obsession and refuse to face the reality that leads to its loss. While spending time in fighting each others king, they fail to protect the real king and his kingdom. Sanjeev Kumar as Mirza Sajjad Ali and Saeed Jaffrey as Mir Roshan Ali are perfect in the two roles.
The cinematography of Ray is beautiful and refined as is the world that it describes. Many of the scenes are beautiful compositions, and when music and dance mix as it does in many Indian films it fits perfectly in the story and the ambiance of the court. The story of the takeover of the last Muslim kingdom of India by the British, with the passive complicity of the local nobility too busy to live its life of luxury and enjoy its preferred pleasures is forever cast in the images of this wonderful film.
In Bernard Tavernier’s film Laissez Passer which I wrote about a few days ago Henri-Georges Clouzot gets indirectly a harsh treatment. He is one of these directors who continued to work under the German occupation during WWII, and was attacked for this attitude long time after. He was also a fine director, classics like Quai d’Orfevres, Le Salaire de la Peur (Wages of Fear, maybe the best role in the career of Yves Montand) and Diabolique are among the best works in French cinema until the emergence of the New Wave, which displaced Clouzot.
It is ironical that La Verite was his last great film, and that the New Wave exponents were so critical of him. The film contains in my opinion in it many of the elements that were further taken over, continued and amplified by Truffaut, Godard, et co. It is to some extent a milestone at the border between the classic and the new French cinema of the 60s. The subject itself speaks about the confrontation of two generations. A young girl is brought to trial. She killed her lover and the court needs to decide if this was an accident, or a passion crime, or a calculated murder. The tribunal is composed of all that represents the old generation – judges, lawyers, audience – all ready to pass a moral judgment or maybe a lynch on the girl. She comes from a different world, she belongs to a different generation, one that refuses to complain to conventions, she speaks a different language, listens to a different music, feels and loves differently. Today’s spectator cannot abstain from thinking about 1968, the year when than generation took the streets in France and elsewhere, and changed history. But the year is still 1960, and the verdict of the trial can be only one.
The intuition of Clouzot is ahead of time not only in what concerns the historical judgment. It is also in the style of filming. Most of the film is a court drama, in the American tradition of Kramer, just translated in French. A few scenes however are filmed in the street, part of the flashbacks that recall the story of the affair that ended in tragedy. Well these scenes are for all practical purposed New Wave. They do not only depict the Paris of the new generation, they are also filmed in the style of the new generation of directors. Here Clouzot bends graciously towards the young directors that will defame him.
And of course, there is Brigitte Bardot. This is one of her best roles, she plays the whole range of emotions she is capable of, is beautiful and vulnerable, passionate and desperate. She attracts men, she attracts the attention, she creates emotion. It is her against the whole world, in a personal rebellion with no chance of success. With this film she established herself as a serious actress, not only as a popular star. It is her film to the same extent that it’s Clouzot’s and it is one to remember.
Aceste note de lectura au aparut pe Web-site-ul filme-carti.ro condus de prietenul meu Stefan Ene (Jovi) si sunt prima mea contributie la noua editie a acestui site, pe care il recomand tuturor iubitorilor de film si carte.
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Una dintre cronicile culegerii lui Alex Leo Serban ‘4 decenii, 3 ani si 2 luni cu filmul romanesc’ aparuta in colectia CINEMA a editurii Polirom ii este dedicata confratelui sau din generatia mai veche de critici de film romani, Tudor Caranfil. Este o ocazie pentru Serban sa prinda in condei caracteristicile unui bun critic de film: ‘Pentru a fi bun (foarte bun … exceptional) sunt necesare trei conditii: sa scrie bine, sa aiba gust, sa aiba cultura (macar de specialitate daca nu generala).’ (pag. 299). Dupa toate aceste criterii Alex Leo Serban este cel putin un critic de cinema foarte bun.
sursa: www.polirom.ro
Ca iubitor de film exilat, al carui contact cu cinematografia romaneasca a fost destul de ocazional si marcat de mari goluri si intarzieri vreme de peste doua decenii, nu cunosteam nici noile generatii de critici de fim romani. Numele lui Alex. Leo Serban il intalnisem doar ocazional in presa ‘rasfoita’ pe Internet, si apoi aveam sa-mi confirm comunitatea de gusturi ca si seriozitatea si profunzimea opiniilor cronicarului de film (in ciuda stilului, well, cinematografic) vazand o parte dintre filmele despre care scria Serban. Mai recent am descoperit ca criticul este un colaborator peranent la LiterNet – http://www.liternet.ro/autor/90/Alex-Leo-Serban.html. Este primul volum al sau pe care il citesc.
Cartea cuprinde majoritatea textelor criticului despre cinematografia si filmul romanesc. Organizarea volumui este destul de eclectica. In prima sectiune ‘Atitudini si clasamente’ sunt adunate textele autorului care se refera mai mult la industria, presa si institutiile cinematografiei romanesti decat la filmele insesi. Pentru cititorul si iubitorul de film trait in ultimele decenii in afara hotarelor Romaniei valoarea unora dintre informatiile adunate aici este unica, o parte surprinzand, altele confirmand cele pe care le ghicisem din vizionarea unora dintre filmele epocii. Daca in primele texte viziunea este pesimista (un articol din 1993 este tritrat ‘Despre un Cinematograf care nu exista’) iar opinia despre institutiile care ar trebui sa sprijine cinematografia romaneasca este permenent critica, aparitia ‘noului val’ in primii ani ai noului mileniu este receptionata ca o surpriza (‘Adevarul este ca nu l-am vazut venind acest asa-zis “nou val” - pag. 55), o surpriza rapid recuperata si pe care criticul de valoare si sensibilitate se pune imediat sa o analizeze. El detecteaza imediat o ruptura intre generatiile regizorilor de ‘dinainte’ si de ‘dupa’ dar si filoane de continuitate tematica si de raportare la realitate. Noul Val este descris ca un rezultat nu numai al crezului artistic al regizorilor ci si ca o consecinta a conditiilor unei perioade de tranzitie economica, sociala si culturala pentru intreaga lume romaneasca: ‘jaloanele “minimalismului” cinematografic romanesc erau deja trasate: buget mic, filmari “din mana”, sunet in priza directa si o poveste simpla, puternica si adevarata, care face inutile artificiile cinemaului “traditional”‘. (pag 56-57).
A doua sectiune intitulata ‘Portrete, dialoguri si relatari’ cuprinde interviuri cu si luate de Serban, portrete ale unora dintre persoanele importante ale cinema-ului romanesc actual si relatari de la festivalurile de filme, inclusiv de la Cannes din anii in care filmul romanesc era oaspete regulat al galelor premiatilor. Vorbind despre succesul tinerilor cineasti romani in strainatate criticul mentioneaza jaloanele esentiale: ‘Cristi Puiu a pus samanta (cu Moartea Domnului Lazarescu), Corneliu Porumboiu a udat locul (cu A fost sau n-a fost) iar Cristian Mungiu a cules roadele (cu 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile)’ - pag. 102. Nu lipsesc nici de la Cannes intepaturile la adresa ‘organizatiilor’: ‘Este aberant ca CNC sau mai stiu eu ce “for” sa se laude cu niste filme … facute in regim de gherila’ – pag. 119. Premiile festivalurilor de la Cannes sunt apreciate favorabil relativ cu premiile Oscar – ‘cu cat voteaza mai multi – si mai marunti – cu-atat premiul e mai dubios’ - pag. 120.
Alex Leo Serban
Sectia a treia este dedicata cronicilor propriu-zise. Aici am putut sa compar impresiile mele cu cele ale lui Serban in ceea ce priveste filmele pe care si eu le-am vazut, si in mare parte gusturile coincid. In primul rand criticul nu este catusi de putin reverentios sau tolerant cu esecurile regizorilor din generatiile vechi. Aproape nimic din ceea ce au facut in ultimele decenii Sergiu Nicolaescu sau Malvina Ursianu nu ii place (dar in schimb apreciaza cartea regizoarei) iar filmele lui Pita si Daneliuc sunt receptate si ele mai mult sau mai putin critic, de la caz a caz. ‘Marfa si banii’ - filmul de debut al lui Cristi Puiu este sesizat ca un moment de cotitura si o brusca deschidere de fereastra spre aer proaspat in cinematograful romanesc. ‘Filantropica’ lui Caranfil este asociat unui curent diferit de minimalism cu care asocierea este doar tematica. Despre ‘Train de Vie’ al lui Mihaileanu criticul are rezerve similare cu ale mele. Analizele cele mai serioase sunt cele facute filmelor lui Porumboiu si Mungiu. Despre 4-3-2 in cronica intitulata ‘Acesta nu este un film despre avort’ Serban gaseste cuvintele care cuprind exact si filmul si epoca la care filmul se refera: ‘4,3,2 este ca un experiment cu oameni, numai ca “opera” nu este a lui Mungiu cu a lui Ceausescu; regizorul-scenarist nu a facut decat sa traga cortina peste cutiile transparente in care romanii avortau zilnic vietile lor’.
Ultima sectiune a cartii este intitulata ‘Addenda’ - titlu sub care s-ar aduna de obicei tot ceea ce nu a putut fi categorisit si plasat in logica restului cartii. Tocmai aici insa poate fi gasit cel mai important text al cartii dupa opinia mea. Este vorba despre eseul ‘Cele doua batai de pleoapa ale modernitatii’ care se ocupa de precursorii noii cinematografii romanesti de astazi. Dupa ce trece in revista debuturile cinematografiei romanesti in 1912 si momentul Iliu cu ‘La moara cu noroc’ (‘oricat de important a fost acest titlu pentru vremea respectiva, pare mai mult un film din anii ‘30 ajuns la destinatie cu intarziere’), criticul ajunge la anul cheie 1965. Titlul cartii este chiar inspirat din numele filmului lui Mungiu, iar daca numaram deceniile, anii si lunile de la scrierea cartii in urma dam de anul 1965, anul in care ‘Padurea spanzuratilor’ al lui Ciulei lua premiul la Cannes si in care iesea pe ecrane filmul de debut al lui Pintilie ‘Duminica la ora 6′. Daca acesta din urma este mentinat doar ca o rebeliune a formei pe baza unui scenariu conformist, ‘Padurea spanzuratilor’ si ‘Reconstituirea’ lui Ciulei din 1969 sunt pentru Serban dipticul canonic pentru istoria filmului romanesc. Personalizarea viziunii regizorale si includerea elementelor de oglindire a artei cinematografice (de la filmul in film al lui Pintilie pana la studioul de televiziune provincial al lui Porumboiu) sunt semnele de reper sub care se desfasoara evolutia filmului romanesc. Acest eseu care incheie culegerea de texte diferite in origine, forma, si destinatie scrise de Alex Leo Serban intr-o perioada de approape doua decenii pune ordine si da sens multora dintre ideile disparate despre subiectul de pasiune comuna al criticului si cititorilor – cinematografia romaneasca contemporana.
There is very little information available about this film which was recently broadcast by the Romanian satellite TV station TVRi. The director himself had a career marked by big intervals of silence. His first film was a documentary made in 1970 which made him quite popular, but his next film came only eight years later. His most well-known movie is the adaptation to screen of Marin Preda’s Morometii, one of the best novels about the transformation in the life of Romanian farmer’s class in the mid of the last century. After the revolution he returns to documentary again with a film about the protest movements in Piata Universitatii in 1990. This film also talks about the Romanian changes in 1989-1990 and was made in 1996. Then Gulea went silent at least as a director, until last year, and I did not yet see or hear anything about his last film Weekend with My Mother made in 2009.
The facts in Stare de fapt (which roughly translate into ’state of facts’ or ‘reality’) are brutal. It is the first fiction film that I saw dealing directly with the events of December 1989 and their aftermath. The hero of the film is a young woman, a physician superbly acted by Oana Pellea. In the night between the two worlds, when the Romanian youth take the streets and the Communist regime tries to repress the revolt, she makes love with her colleague (a divorcee), then they drive in the city and collect a young boy with a bullet wound. They take care of him, take him to the hospital, the wound in the stomach is not critical, but in the next morning they find him dead with a bullet hole in his head. The secret police officer forces them to sign a false death certificate. A few days later she finds herself in the national TV station apparently under attack by terrorist. She recognizes the secret police officer, now having crossed the lines on the side of what should be the Revolution. She is marked as a danger to speak the truth, they try to silence her, she does not accept and decides to stand for the truth.
The first third of the film reconstituting the events of December 1989 is in my opinion the best. The low quality of the film combined with the good camera work by Alexandru Solomon (himself later a well-known documentary director) plays well in this case giving to this whole part an air of authenticity. The TV studios were the center stage of the events which were labeled worldwide as the first revolution broadcast live on TV. In reality there was a lot of confusion, it was not clear who shoot on whom, many victims could have probably been avoided. It was a time when truth and lie, terrorist and revolutionary, patriotism and corruption, good and evil, which should have been departed at a crucial moment in the history of Romania mixed again in the painful start of a new period in the history of the country, maybe not as bad as the previous one, but much more confusing.
Following the destiny of the young woman for the rest of the film, director Stere Gulea makes a bitter and pessimistic commentary not only about the events of 1989 but also about what followed. The woman gets caught into a web of lies and repression that should not have existed after 1989. Her oppressor (also admirably acted by Razvan Vasilescu) becomes part of the new regime apparatus, but he eventually disappears as well, maybe his existence having become too inconvenient for the new bosses. The father of the killed boy whom the woman meets in the cemetery does not know and does not want to know how he died, he is rather angry that such a good boy as he was did such a bad thing getting killed in the streets. The full new society seems to ignore its heroes, seems to refuse to hear the truth.
The film is not perfect. Despite the dramatic events and tragic destiny put on screen the second part of the film has too many holes and inconsistencies in the story building. It’s more a collection of memorable moments that a story well told. The symbolism is poignant but too heavy. Yet it is impressing and the quality resides in the bluntness of the saying.
The last scene of the film is a childbirth – painful and bloody as any childbirth, but also a reason of hope. There is no smile on the face of the mother, just her eyes are open interrogative about the future.
12 is a remake of the classical 12 Angry Men – Sidney Lumet’s ultimate jury drama. What makes Nikita Mikhalkov, a director who never lacked original ideas or Russian scripts take the court drama located in the US of the 5os just out of the McCarthy period era and transplant it with all its 12 characters, with very similar premises and very predictable (at least up to some point) end into the reality of today’s Russia?
source www.imdb.com
I believe that the intent is explicit and declarative. Russia undergoes now a similar process of transition as the USA in the 50s, and the end is still uncertain. The laws may be already written in the books of laws, the jury system is called in theory to allow for fair trials in which the accused is presumed innocent until l proven guilty, but laws are implemented by humans and humans have limitations and prejudices and they are in a hurry to give a verdict and get back to their lives. As in Lumet’s film, it is more the human beings than the system that ensure that justice is eventually done. The responsibility of every man to stand up and express his doubts despite the overwhelming opinion of the other, the right of the minority in a democratic system to have its say despite the apparent rightfulness of the majority are key elements in the Russian film as well as in the original American one,
And yet at the same time Mikhalkov’s film is very Russian. The mix of characters represents various sectors of today’s Russian society and the acting is without exception splendid. National tensions and antisemitism are still part of the landscape, and so are the cultural and even the language sequels of the Communist period. The jurors, all men (why?) address each other inertially with the denomination ‘comrades’. Each has the opportunity to tell his story, and the stories describe the background of their personalities, and the motivation of their decision to eventually absolve the innocent. it is however the surprise ending that adds a new dimension to the film. The Chechen youngster wrongly accused of killing his Russian stepfather is acquitted. However, his acquittal may mean just a suspension of a death penalty in the hands of the mafia who are the real responsible of the murder. It takes a rather melodramatic ending to solve this problem, and this interesting addition to the original American story is both unconvincing as story flow but quite eyes-opening. Although the court drama is for almost the whole duration of the film confined inside the walls of the same room it tells a lot about the Russian realities at large.
