Finally a Romanian film after which I did not feel like cutting my wrists. Even comedies lobotomize my joie de vivre with a dubious surgical precision!
This one is about Eva, a 17-ish year old girl from a poor part of the town I suspect who gets kicked out of the good high school because she refuses to defend herself about doing something her boyfriend had done out of sheer stupidity (creaking a bust of the beloved Communist leader Ceausescu with his karate moves while trying to get her to sleep with him). Her boyfriend Alexandru's father is well known and feared within the community as working for the secret police and manages to get him cleared out. Thus Eva's unwillingness to straighten the facts takes her to the professional highschool where she forges a friendship with another outcast, Andrei, a boy whose parents are surveilled by militia constantly for "plotting" against the Communist Party. Together they plan to escape the country by crossing the Danube from a sort of youthful exuberance, I'd think, not a proper reasoning. The sexual awakening that started with Alex (a viciously handsome boy) continues with Andrei (boredering on tallest-man syndrome ugly, although eerily enough he reflects a lot of the heroine's features) through their silly training in an icy bathtub or with empty gas tanks in the lake.
The other important relashionship in Eva's life is the one with her little brother, a charming devil, whom she practically has to raise as their parents work long unforgiving hours - not clear what and why. Throughout the entire film he voices the dissent of the people towards the great leaders of the country - he doesn't know exactly why but he feels everyone's tension on the topic and occasionally bursts the inapropriate comment. His big plan is to sing in front of Ceausescu and kill him, thus becoming the hero of the nation.
Cringe-worthy moments: when the commuters' bus has no space to do a U-turn in the country dirt road and practically pushes the pedestrians into the bushes completing the humiliation of their life, job, status etc. The uptight blond music teacher that was keen on getting the children to be quiet and sing the hymn. She looked like the embodiment of evil - my drawing teacher grades 1 to 8 who never ever gave me better than a 9 although I did the prettiest drawings in the entire class.
There's also an slight reference to the way gypsies were (are?) treated culminating with a moment when another music teacher rejects the gypsy boy who can sing because "I wish I could, but you know very well I can't [have you in the choir on stage]."
The pace is quite slow because nothing much happens, but builds the mood towards the grand finale - the end of A world. Good film, first that made me look at national -specific flaws with amusement and not contempt.
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