June 14, 2007 (Guardian Unlimited / Ronald Bergan) -- I was determined in my coverage of the Transylvania International Film Festival to avoid the one notorious name associated with that part of Romania.

My intention in travelling to the lively city of Cluj was to discover the secret behind the great success of Romanian cinema in the last two years which began with the widely acclaimed The Death of Mr Lazarescu and culminated with two prize-winners at this year's Cannes: California Dreamin', which topped the Un Certain Regard section, and 4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days which carried off the Palme d'Or.

Keeping to my promise was hard, however. On my arrival, I noticed that the poster for the festival showed four men auditioning for the role of Dracula. Then the short trailer that introduced each film had a Max Schreck lookalike having the length of his fingers and fangs measured by a casting director. A few days later, FW Murnau's classic Nosferatu was shown, accompanied by Romania's remarkable Einuiea band, who are influenced by the ancient music of the region.

Yet, apart from a few passing references to vampires from the foreign guests, the festival was all about a programme of the best new movies picked by its energetic and youthful organisers. The festival is now in its sixth year and attracts fervent audiences, mainly in the 18-25 age range. Naturally, the hottest ticket in town was for the Palme d'Or winner - there were queues round the block from early morning. Cristian Mungiu, the young director, told me how pleasant it was to show the film to a large Romanian audience - they were more appreciative of the black humour in this impressive and bleak tale of a backstreet abortion.

But the director was worried that his next film, which he is yet to plan, may disappoint after the high reached by his second feature, and "no matter how much money I manage to get, it's not going to help me write a good screenplay".

Inevitably, not all the recent Romanian films were as good as the hits mentioned above. But several were interesting. An early screening was Nae Caranfil's The Rest is Silence, a delightful biopic of the director who made the first Romanian feature film ever produced, The War for Independence (1912). Unfortunately though, this epic recreation of the battles between Romanian and Ottoman forces in 1878 was ruined by a completely inappropriate electronic rock score, and by being projected at the wrong speed and wrong framing.

The other Cannes winner, California Dreamin', an entertaining satire on the culture clash between American Nato troops and small-town Romanians, suffered somewhat from the fact that the director, Cristian Nemescu, died before the film could be cut. He and his sound engineer were killed during post-production when their taxi was struck by a Porsche driven by a British man who had jumped a red light. Nemescu was 27.

And yet there was no escaping the euphoria that hung over the festival because of a Romanian film winning the Palme d'Or for the first time. The Romanian public gave its director a hero's welcome, almost as if he had brought home the World Cup. Despite the ceaseless praise heaped upon Mungiu and others in Romanian cinema, however, there were lingering fears expressed in many of the speeches at the closing awards ceremony. It was astonishing to learn that Romania has fewer cinemagoers and fewer cinemas per head than any other European country. There were also pleas for more money for the industry, which has lower public investment than its neighbours. (Even the Cluj festival has had to rely solely on private sponsors.)

How to explain the current triumph of Romanian cinema then? It partly came about because the directors, mostly in their 30s, were able to break with a time before 1989 when, because of censorship, films had to use all sorts of metaphors to get by. This generation can make the films they want to make and produce disturbing works of intense realism with an underlying vein of black humour.

Perhaps we can look forward to even more new blood, if you'll excuse the expression.

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Posted by Vladimir Fri, 06/15/2007 - 13:13

 

The Moon Weeps

A great glowing orb sinks behind the horizon
Another sphere, silver and shimmering, rises to take her brother's place
Farewell Apollo, greetings Diana
Cast your light upon this hurt little girl
Fill her with your understanding and love
Do not let her weep in anguish

She looks up to the silvery orb
Diana's light glitters, filling the girl's tears with specks of fairy dust
The girl stands up, lifting her arms
"Diana," she whispers, "take me home"

Silver light surrounds the girl

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Requiem for the Living

Beside me on the piano bench she sat,
And we, under the watchful gaze of Frederick,
Danced upon the keys.
A language unto itself, but I tried to think of
the words.
To add a touch of intellect to this soulful moment.
I wanted to say, "She walks in beauty like the night,"
But she was too familiar with that.
The Scratchman threw those words at her in folly
Like so many dead roses.

I thought Aeschylus would be better.
With his song of a slain king, or Euripides
In all his cynicism.

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Scared

words echo endlessly
on a sea of pain
blood red
hurt
it goes on forever
never ending
always the same
hurting worse
each day
the pain grows
slowly becoming unbearable
an ache
throbbing and harsh
growing worse
pounding out its existance
on the very essence of being
screaming
hating without thought
... ... ...
I don't know how to continue
to go on
I can't find the words for it
silence
HELP ME!!!

Raevynn
October 11, 2001

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harmony

do not ever eat the bird
their wings tap furiously against
the ribbed vault of thy palate
do not swallow the incarnated freedom
do not dare to awake me
i do not belong to the sun-worshipping tribe
no! do not feel sorry
i am happier that way

nadja
February 25, 2002

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Chapter 09: Home at last?

removed as per the request of the author

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