Romanian Cinema/Cinema românesc (2014)

This short documentary directed by Vlad Nedelcu, billed as ‘Cinema made in Romania’ (‘Văzut în toată lumea, dar nu acasă: Seen all over the world, but not at home’) contemplates the state of Romanian film.  ‘What does Romanian cinema mean to you?’ is the first question asked, and the answers given by the interviewees – directors, actors, a producer and a critic – suggest difficulty pinning it down.

Before the Second World War Romanian film production had been open, but under communist rule with only rare exceptions it became nationally isolated, heavily regulated and censored. Romanian directors’ work was uneven, and although some tried to express a personal vision despite the orthodoxy, it was with limited success.

All funding came from the state, with no private money, and box office ratings were not an issue as it was not a commercial climate.  National output was small, 20-30 films each year, still a significant number given the technical constraints on production.  Cinemagoing was a popular activity because there were few leisure alternatives, not because Romanian films were particularly powerful.

There was a crisis in the late 1980s when production declined so the national debt could be paid.  Television broadcasting was also reduced and cinemagoing filled the gap, albeit the quality was variable. For financial and ideological reasons foreign language films were not shown.  The situation was not unique to Romania in communist countries, but it was more severe than in others.

In the years after 1989 some aspects changed, such as the freedom to explore new themes, though the directors remained the same.  Foreign films appeared in the early 1990s with an improved distribution network, but evolution in Romanian film was slow; an initial expectation of creative flowering did not materialise and there was corruption in the awarding of funds.

So Romanian cinema entered the doldrums during the 1990s as the industry tried to decide what to do with its new-found freedom; an assumption that a hitherto forbidden sexual emphasis would play well with the public was mistaken, and films were of poor quality.  It required a new generation of filmmakers to bring a fresh approach.

Romanian cinema improved in the early 2000s, when it heralded a New Wave, though actors, with a strong theatre heritage, found it a steep learning curve.  However, there is now more competition for leisure time than there used to be.  Romanian films are strong in depicting realistic situations with energy, and making the most of small budgets, but this does not make for widespread popularity at home.

There does not seem to be a strong identity for Romanian film, nor a significant art house film buff culture in Romania.  Referring to films made after 2000, ‘not so loved at home, but critically acclaimed abroad’ is the verdict.  The consensus is that Romanian films appeal to those who make them and to the critics more than they do to the Romanian public.

As in many countries, the average Romanian cinemagoer prefers Hollywood blockbusters over those relating to unvarnished experience as expressed in ‘Romanian Minimalist Cinema’.  There is little desire to see the problems of everyday life reflected back.  Interviewees suggested that more home-grown commercial films are needed to expand the range available and help to address the imbalance.

It was pointed out that the situation might improve if directors were more responsive to domestic audiences, rather than making films to suit themselves, but it was also noted that while these films may not do well in Romania itself, they tend to sell in other countries.  As a result, at least Romanian cinema is now on the map internationally.

The documentary is available from Cinepub, itself evidence of a thriving Romanian film culture:

https://cinepub.ro/movie/cinema-romanesc/

Life Begins on Friday, by Ioana Pârvulescu

Set in Bucharest, Ioana Pârvulescu’s 2009 novel Viaţa începe vineri, elegantly translated by Alistair Ian Blyth and published by Istros Books, has a broad cast of characters who intersect during the final weeks of 1897, beginning on ‘Friday 19 December: An Eventful Day’, to make up a portrait of the city as it accelerates towards the new century.  Indeed, Pârvulescu, in providing a list of the major and minor figures who populate her novel, teasingly includes as ‘unconventional characters’ Bucharest and time, and they do play as significant a role as any of the others she has created.

On that fateful Friday Petre, a coachman, finds two men lying near each other in the winter snow in the Băneasa area on the north side of the city.  One is a young aristocrat who has been shot.  The other is oddly-dressed Dan Creţu, an enigmatic figure who may be from the future.  Dan is suspected of being responsible for the other man’s injuries, but denies it.  The wounded man dies in hospital shortly after saying a few words which do not seem to make sense, but not naming his assailant.

Resolution of the various mysteries the novel generates takes second place to the kaleidoscopic treatment of character and place.  Nicu, a messenger boy aged eight, is connected to the newspaper Universal and links a variety of other people.  He is friends with Jacques Margulis, a sickly boy on crutches whose sister Iulia is reading Vanity Fair in English and using it as a touchstone for her unfulfilling romantic life (feeling she resembles Amelia Sedley more than she does Becky Sharp).  She emerges as the novel’s main narrator as we peer over her shoulder at her journal.

Dan is vague about his background, but it is obvious he knows about journalism, and he is taken on by Universul.  He is liked by all with whom he comes into contact, despite his unfamiliarity with many of the customs, and he seems a most unlikely assassin.  For his part, he feels adrift in this new environment, simultaneously strange and familiar, which lends him an exotic air.  He becomes the reader’s eyes in assessing the differences and similarities between 1897 and the present, and gauging their value.

At a New Year’s party towards the end of the novel, those gathered make predictions, many destined to come to pass, not least the takeover by ‘the reds’.  It is a beautifully poignant section, one full of hope for the future and the promise technology brings, though hope ultimately undermined by undesirable political realities.  There is a sense of sadness for a vibrant society destined to undergo deep travails in the century ahead.

For most of the narrative it is left unclear whether Dan has truly traveled back in time, but the novel concludes in the present, with Dan dropping into the magazine office he works at and being surprised to see, in an old copy of Universul somebody has found, a name very similar to his under an item headed ‘Why do you fast?’ – the very first task he was given when he arrived in such peculiar circumstances in 1897.  How he was transported to the past is left unexplained, but the ennui he experienced in the present has given way to a more fulfilling existence.

Pârvulescu is an academic historian and has written a novel full of the atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Bucharest (fully justifying the oft-cited parallel with Paris) which brings the city alive.  It is unusual Romanian fiction in dealing with the nineteenth century, and Mircea Cărtărescu’s afterword notes that Life Begins on Friday is a singular novel even by the standards of current Romanian literature as a ‘book of delicate nostalgia’.  It was a time when Romania was finding itself as a nation and Life Begins on Friday hints at a path untravelled.  The sense of optimism, when ‘people thrummed like telegraph wires,’ causes us to think about how the future could have been very different, and rather better than the one which transpired.