Highly anticipated and greeted with high expectations as well, the movie delivered what it supposed to do... the sequel to the better first part. However, it was a missed chance for the director Gulea to deliver another masterpiece that would have become his artistic testament: a richer post war political context, characters reaching their maturity and a rich artistic potential given by a whole spectrum of directions that the movie could have turn to. However, this was also the pitfall of this movie. The director become artistically greedy trying to cover too much of the artistic scope and did not concentrate on covering well certain aspects that could have defined the movie: transformation of Moromete, the relation with Niculae, his son, the impact of political drama unfolding after the war or the never changing peasant wisdom so well anchored in the Romanian culture. Everyone forgot that the writer main character was the Romanian peasant and his infinite wisdom, portrayed by Moromete and not vice-versa. Gulea choose instead to cover all of themes, resulting in weak presentations of all of them, forging forgettable characters that didn't impress nor amazed the audience, sacrificing art for a social drama documentary and betraying the village for more of a urban context, contrasting with the work of the writer Preda and his intentions... Not to be misunderstood, Gulea is a very good director but he got trapped in by his own ambitions and past. For once, the director knows that this will be his last chance to create something big for cinematography (hope I'am wrong...) and he wanted to do it all in ( a poker metaphor). To exemplify, it came to my mind the just released Polish "Cold War" movie that had a more empowering linear narrative...Secondly, Morometii 2 had become a personal revenge. Gulea's father spent many years in the communist prisons and maybe the director felt the need to dive in the political context as a personal duty. I think that Rebengiuc's choice not to act in the second part was a wise move (Malaele delivered also a solid performance)... wondering if with a different director things would have been different. Overall, the movie is a must see, loved it as it continued the story of my childhood book:) People should not compare this with Nunta Muta, Cel mai iubit dintre pamanteni or Rascoala.... it has a different artistic registry...
Reviews
3 Reviews
Never Ever
(2016)
Trying too hard
17 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I recently viewed this movie at TIFF. Needless to say, high expectations considering the director's resume. It was an sour experience with a sweet taste. The movie offered plenty of artistic elements and post modernism perspectives but failed to offer well defined characters hence an anthology of abstract confusion and a rather ambiguous soul searching trip. The drama around loss and love is stolen by a personal trip of redefining, ambiguous and not well portrayed. I suspect the lack of experience of an otherwise promising screenwriter. A plus given by the music and art director. And that's all... A good book poorly translated in a movie. It is however first time when I can say that I am happy to have spend money on a movie that I did not like.
Gone Girl
(2014)
Kafka&Freud reloaded
16 December 2014
Little did I know about America's taste for surrealism in the year of grace 2014 yet I have to concede that this movie gave me an unique experience, not knowing the end half an hour before ending and being reminded that introspection is still an art. The Gone Girl is a beautiful sweet and sour satire to the modern family in which the institution of marriage is observed and analyzed from a cold and ironic angle. The whole movie is a trial in which each character is analyzed and over-analyzed only to show the absurdity of doing this thing in the first place. No wonder that Kafka novel is called "The trial". The book/movie shows the beautiful and sacred mission of marriage which has been transformed by our natural imperfection (craziness included)in a show for a given audience (mass media, family, neighbours, etc.), a peer pressure factor that gives out sentences in the name of everything but reality. The movie/book is about acceptance. The domestic blame that the author beautifully is moving around for us to accept is only the bait that will take us nowhere. The author is kind of saying us, "grab a mirror"... and use it. Even the "escape" of the female character in the lake house retreat is just a metaphor for the fact that there is no escape from craziness but another Kafkaesque/Freudian mined land.
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