Romanian Cinema Rising
From May 11 through June 26, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents the series Romanian Cinema Rising, a survey of the under-recognized past and award-winning present of this rapidly emerging Eastern European cinema. Films from the Sixties through early Eighties will screen on selected dates in May, followed by recent films in June.
When Cristian Mungiu’s FOUR MONTHS, THREE WEEKS, AND TWO DAYS won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007, it put the spotlight on Romanian cinema as never before. Critical acclaim for the late Cristian Nemescu’s CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ at the same festival added luster to the nation’s recent string of cinematic triumphs including the Cannes Festival’s 2005 A Certain Regard award for Cristi Puiu’s THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU, and 2006 Camera d’Or prize for Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST.
The Romanian cinema has struggled to reach its newfound position in the world spotlight. Our series includes ten films made pre-1989, under the oppression and censorship of the Ceausescu dictatorship, including the renowned FOREST OF THE HANGED (1965), winner of Best Director at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. Like film artists in other nations where restrictive conditions have prevailed, Romanian filmmakers found creative ways to reflect and to comment upon the realities of their society by means of historical tales, allegories, and satire.
THE RETURN OF THE BANISHED (1979) portrays the eccentric, violent reign of a 16th-century Moldavian despot, while THE PALE LIGHT OF SORROW evokes magic realism in a story that begins on the eve of WWI. Atmospheric SUNDAY AT SIX (1965) builds the tension of a spy story as two young lovers in an underground political cell attempt to connect. CONTEST (1980) lampoons bureaucracy and blind allegiance to leadership in a satire involving an outdoor team-building exercise.
The filmmaking process itself is the starting point for films including MICROPHONE TEST (1979), A GIRL’S TEAR (1980), and SEQUENCES (1982), each utilizing a film-within-a-film strategy to explore an interface between reality and fiction or truth and lies.
Romanian Cinema Rising continues in June with more recent films including DON’T LEAN OUT THE WINDOW (aka SUNDAYS ON LEAVE) (1994) by Nae Caranfil, OCCIDENT (2002) by Cristian Mungiu, MARIA (2003) by Calin Peter Netzer, LOVE SICK (2006) by Tudor Giurgiu, THE PAPER WILL BE BLUE (2006) by Radu Muntean, and more.
This series is based on a series organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, and in partnership with the Romanian National Center for Cinema, the National Film Archive, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Culture of Romania. The Gene Siskel Film Center especially thanks: Alina Salcudeanu, Romanian National Center for Cinema; Oana Radu, Romanian Cultural Institute in New York; Ariadna Ponta, Romanian Cultural Institute, Bucharest; and Florentina Vianu, Consulate General of Romania, Chicago. --Barbara Scharres
CIRCUS PERFORMERS
(SALTIMBANCII)
1981, Elisabeta Bostan, Romania/USSR, 93 min.
Octavian Cotescu, Carmen Galin
A lively tale of a touring circus sparkles with the glittery illusion of the big top circa 1900, and stars members of the Bucharest Circus. Known for her children’s films, director Bostan focuses on Geo, a plucky boy with an extended family of veteran show-people including the vain bareback rider, a beautiful high-wire artiste, a soulful clown, and the polar bear cub that will change all their fortunes following a disastrous fire. Some distinctly Russian flavor adds spice to the story in this Romanian-USSR co-production. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, May 31, 3:00 pm
Wednesday, June 4, 8:00 pm
CONTEST
(aka ORIENTEERING)
(CONCURS)
1980, Dan Pita, Romania, 104 min.
With Claudiu Bleont, Theodor Danetti
A bus carrying office workers on a summer outing unloads in a dense forest area and an orienteering competition gets underway. Small bands of white-collar adventurers plunge into the woods with varying degrees of enthusiasm for their annual team-building exercise. Between bad judgment and ego, a Dilbert-like absurdity takes hold in this allegory with multiple meanings. A stranger’s distant cry for help goes unheeded in favor of the game, which soon takes a darker turn. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Sunday, May 25, 5:00 pm
Thursday, May 29, 6:00 pm
FOREST OF THE HANGED
(PADUREA SPÂNZURATILOR)
1964, Liviu Ciulei, Romania, 158 min.
With Victor Rebengiuc, Anna Széles
Winner of Best Director at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, FOREST OF THE HANGED, based on the acclaimed novel by Liviu Rebreanu, is a powerful World War I story in the tradition of pacifist-themed war films including THE GRAND ILLUSION and PATHS OF GLORY. An ambitious young Romanian lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian army is torn by doubt and a growing crisis of conscience when the conflict brutally targets his own people as the enemy. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Sunday, May 11, 2:30 pm
Tuesday, May 13, 6:30 pm
A GIRL’S TEAR
(O LACRIMA DE FATA)
1980, Iosif Demian, Romania, 83 min.
With Anton Aftenie, George Bussun
A film crew descends on a backwater village to record the official inquiry into the recent drowning death of a woman, rumored to be murder. The filmmakers set to work but the locals are strangely evasive about what they know, focusing instead on the reputation of the victim: the town slut by some accounts, a sweet girl by others. This film-within-a-film proceeds to play with perceptions, foregrounding tripods, lights, and all the trappings of production while the evidence and the truth manage to dodge and hide. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Friday, May 23, 8:00 pm
Monday, May 26, 3:00 pm
MICROPHONE TEST
(PROBA DE MICROFON)
1979, Mircea Daneliuc, Romania, 108 min.
With Mircea Daneliuc, Gina Patrichi
A jaded TV cameraman with a man-on-the-street beat becomes obsessed with a woman he encounters on a train without a ticket. Having just broken off an affair with his director, he pursues the attractive stranger for a volatile but tenuous relationship controlled by her mysterious and frequent need to borrow money. The film’s effortless blend of cinema verité and fiction balances the inadvertent drama of real people against the tension of a chase with an ambiguous future. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Sunday, May 18, 5:30 pm
Monday, May 19, 6:00 pm
THE PALE LIGHT OF SORROW
(LUMINA PALIDA A DURERII)
1978, Iulian Mihu, Romania, 147 min.
With Violeta Andrei, Andrei Finti
A vivid, dreamlike chronicle of life in a Carpathian village circa 1913, THE PALE LIGHT OF SORROW delves into secrets, eccentricities, and rituals against the beautiful, formidable landscape that keeps the remote hamlet a world largely unto itself. WWI overtakes Europe and reverberates in the village through deprivation, disease, and political upheaval, yet director Mihu, who has been likened by critics to the Taviani brothers, places his emphasis on the mysterious proclivities of the human character. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, May 17, 3:00 pm
Thursday, May 22, 6:30 pm
THE RETURN OF THE BANISHED
(aka THE RETURN OF PRINCE LAPUSNEANU)
(INTOARCEREA LUI VODA LAPUSNEANU)
1979, Malvina Ursianu, Romania, 148 min.
With George Motoi, Silvia Popovici
Set in the kingdom of Moldavia in the 16th century, this bold yet contemplative historical epic colorfully renders a Machiavellian world through a portrayal of the violent 11-year reign of Prince Alexandru Lapusneanu. The ruler returns to the throne from Turkish exile in 1564 to undertake horrific bloody revenge on his betraying nobles, and severe oppression of the populace follows. Director Ursianu gradually shifts from a natural color scheme to intense livid hues as Alexandru descends into madness and delusion. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, May 24, 3:30 pm
Tuesday, May 27, 6:30 pm
SEQUENCES
(SECVENTE)
1982, Alexandru Tatos, Romania, 98 min.
With Geo Barton, Mircea Diaconu
Three darkly satirical stories revolve around the close-knit cast and crew of a film in production ironically entitled HAPPINESS. The director finds the mood of his life echoing his script in “The Telephone.” In “Prospecting,” the filmmakers’ dinner at a roadside inn is punctuated by the obnoxious intrusion of an uninvited guest--their host. In “Four Slaps,” two elderly extras seated together in the background of a restaurant scene discover they knew each other during the war: one the torturer, the other his victim. In Romanian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, May 31, 5:00 pm
Monday, June 2, 6:00 pm
SUNDAY AT SIX
(DUMINICA LA ORA 6)
1965, Lucian Pintilie, Romania, 102 min.
With Dan Nutu, Irina Petrescu
With danger of betrayal around every corner, a young man and woman meet furtively and court innocently, a relationship not entirely sanctioned by the undercover political cell to which they both belong. The edgy paranoia of a spy thriller is altered by a neorealist-influenced appreciation for faces in a crowd, giving scenes like those set in a dance hall, a factory cafeteria, or a train station a stunning sense of time and place. Winner of nine international awards, SUNDAY AT SIX is recognized as one of Romania’s earliest auteur films. In Romanian with English subtitles, 35mm. (BS)