The movie depicts the atrocities committed against Bulgarian peasants by the Romanian authorities after reconquering Southern Dobrogea at the end of World War I. Petre Dimitriu, a young army captain heads the local garrison and attempts in vain to prevent the killings. It is difficult to understand why Lucian Pintilie chose an obscure short-story, published in the early 1950s as subject for his film. The author, Petre Dimitriu, was at that time a young writer aspiring for recognition by the communist regime. The autobiographical story tries at the same time to vilify the former regime and to prove that the authors father had dissociated himself from that regime. The story was intended to reinforce the author's credentials and to help him become an aclaimed communist writer before his defection to the West. Lucian Pintilie's direction was not able to annihilate the political background of the story. Therefore, despite its qualities, the film rings like an anachronic revival of the socialist realism of the 1950s.
Review of Un été inoubliable
