East is best
Some of the best movies currently being made are coming from the near east, specifically Turkey and Romania. CRISTIAN MUNGIU, director of the astonishing, Ceausescu-era set 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and the forthcoming Tales from the Golden Age talks about the new wave of Romanian cinema.
Tara Brady, 29 Oct 2009
Among seasoned movie patrons and proper buffs the current consensus holds that cinema emerging from Romania and Turkey is the new black. For art house connoisseurs, these twin dynamos hover around the same hallowed spot once occupied by French films in the sixties or German output during the early seventies. With Turkish cinema, it’s easy to see the appeal: informed by cultural clashes between east and west, tradition and modernity, there’s a state of flux and a host of divergent influences working to create an exciting new grammar.
Young Romanians, however, have taken much of their inspiration from a most unlikely source. For these emerging filmmakers, the final years of the Nicolae Ceausescu era have become particularly fecund territory.
These were, for all the hardships suffered, colourful times. While most of the Eastern Bloc’s post-war Communist countries were ruled by anonymous apparatchiks, the aggressively nationalist Ceausescu fostered an elaborate cult of personality.
One of the leader’s most terrifying programmes was the campaign for mandatory motherhood. Decree 770, issued in 1966, outlawed abortion and rewarded mothers of multiple children with medals. This grim state of affairs became the background for Critian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, the harrowing tale of a young woman seeking a backstreet abortion during the last days of the regime.
The film, a winner at Cannes and countless prestigious festivals, became an unlikely international hit in 2007.
“The film was based on a true story told to me by a young woman who had experienced it,” says the writer-director. “I never thought I was going to make a film out of it. I was trying, rather, to adopt the kind of attitude that the film’s characters have by the end: “We’re going to sweep this under the carpet and never speak of it again.” But it brought back so much emotion and anger about the period so I decided it was too important to let it go.”
Nobody was more shocked by the film’s global success than its author; “I had no expectations whatsoever. I wanted the film to make it to Cannes but I was surprised when it was selected for competition. It just seemed to touch people no matter where they were from. So we have hopes for this new film. Humour travels much better than drama.”
Page 1/3 <Previous 1 2 3 Next>
©Hot Press 2011. Why be a member? | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy