badeavasile

Before actually seeing this motion picture I attempted to induce myself a complete amnesia related to this black page of Romanian history. When I was just a kid I almost died in a crowd struggling to buy some sort of food in a Romanian market. I'm not quite a big fan of the theme called communism. Nevertheless, I've seen some great and bad movies on the subject. Maybe one to many. For an easterner, or to be more precise, for a Romanian born in communism, the film strikes home like a time machine, from the beginning till the end.

Every situation, ironical or sinister, can bring both hysterical laughter and painful memories you'd thought you'll never relive again. All the environment and the acting are amazingly truthful. In fact, you could ask any Romanian born before '89 and acknowledge his personal story through this film. My mother saw "Tales from the Golden Age" and couldn't be convinced it is just a movie played by actors, cause she almost recognized every character in the person of x or y. The reason? She lived for so long nearby the zealous Party activist, the grabby militiaman, the highbinder who represented the centralized authority, the possible unfair penalty pushing you to say "what have I done wrong?", terms like Party assignment, ideological correctness, Eastern egg ration; she, like many others, inhaled the stench of the chemical factory first hand. I mean she had her ball... A big chunk of communist history, served cold.

Every Romanian who lived through communism could tell you what is like to darkly watch Bruce Lee on the illegal VCR machine, cramped with a dozen of people in a block room. Everyone knew the meaning of a present black Volga car or a white 4x4 Aro. Nobody forgot by now how cool was to wear blue jeans clothes afterhours; and no child forgot the bedtime stories told on the air. This is not average comedy. This is a black comedy of life, more like a drama in several episodes! The banana, the "Sibiu" salami brand, in fact any kind of meat in general, the eggs, etc... isn't just about common food anymore! These are true symbols of human survival in the communist Romania.

20-30 years later Romanians still crowd in panic in front of the billing machines of the hypermarkets, just before holidays...like there's no tomorrow... like a sad apple, reminding of the Golden Age... and the "old ways" still prevail along with the bell ringer. But at least now they can listen to Pink Floyd without a hassle, and that's keeping me happy and gives me hope.

It's funny how similar are all the comments posted by the Romanian viewers. The first time I saw the movie I thought "God, is it possible to never forget such a sad existence? Such a bitter-sweet look upon our life? The so-called *balkanism*?..." Do we ever make a jump, like a time-lap, and have different views on what do we do every day?

Further more beyond the "national sport" (as someone once called it) of self-complaining lies the truth. A certain truth that hurts. We can all see the progress of the Romanian society; we think that the rest of the world doesn't. We point the finger on "the other side" or "the good side", so there shall be no mistakes... Well, I've been once in Capalnita, and I had a shock because after seeing this movie I realized it's all there! There's no need for sets, there's no need for trained actors... The grass still grows between the pieces of the sidewalk in the railroad station... Only today's mobile phones and the car models have changed.

Why should a film director make a "more expensive film" or a "non-low-budget" one? Do you really care about how much did it cost? Or, should really be the film an accurate projection of the real life? Was it ever so? No matter what good or wrong you you'll see in the recent Romanian society, there are certain people living in this country who can make genuine art. And finishing a work of art is utopia.

I couldn't avoid to observe Nemescu's care for details and real life like shots. Many excellent Romanian film directors tend to have a keen sense for the dynamism of the short takes by "wearing" the camera like a peer of glasses. No soundtrack is needed except the music within the scene. In the most cases the human eye concentrates on human subjects just like Nemescu's lens did in this masterpiece (from normal to long focal lens, say 85mm or even more than 200mm in some cases). One surrealist shot (with the "Romanian-made" Efel tower) caught my attention as an exception. No image stabilizer is needed when you make a non-commercial movie. On the contrary! Usually, in a very dynamic scene -like a fight- your eye captures only bits of shocking details, cause you're frightened. Complementary artificial lighting is quite moderate if not absent. Sure, this version of the displayed picture needed further cuts and refinements. And this is not because the picture is "too long". That's Hollywood's paradigm, cause art in general doesn't deal with units of measurement. Strangely as it seems for the "outsiders", for those who consider the play of the actors and the action are overreacted, this film can generate pure emotions, antipodes, anger, hope, deliverance, fervour, grace... And this is the main purpose of the 7-th art.

Yes, it's a great movie, even if it's unfortunately unfinished; like an unexploded bomb in the Romanian consciousness... But is there anything "finished" or it has ever been something really "finished" in our country, Romania? Maybe Cristian Nemescu new why it's "endless".