Reviewed by Janina Conboye
Stars Asia Argento, Amira Casar, Birol Ünel,
Alexandra Beaujard, Marco Castoldi,
Beata Palya, Rares Budelaina
Written by Tony Gatlif
Certification UK 15 | Australia M
Runtime 105 minutes
Directed by Tony Gatlif
Transylvania. Let's be honest — our first thoughts usually stray to vampires, dark castles and other eerie stereotypes, but this detailed picture gives an interesting insight into a charming, albeit ghostly foreign land. The film is not wholly moving in anyway, but it does perhaps make you ask a few questions about life and the world we live in.
Gatliff builds a very particular world, depicting a place that is fairly unfamiliar to most of us in western Europe. Romania is haunted by Stalinist landscapes, and since the fall of Ceausescu in 1989, the land has been left with a misty atmosphere of hallucinating landscapes, empty factories and concrete buildings. Zigarina (Argento), Gatliff’s first female protagonist, is a wild free spirit. She is a combative character, but also irrational. Would you run off into the unknown, two months pregnant, looking for your lover who, having already found him once, had just told you he had left your home country to get away from you? Of course, the flip side is that despite her immediate irrational behaviour and heartbreak; as time goes on, she does in fact find happiness with Tchango (Ünel). He is an enigmatic traveller free of borders and a home who speaks several languages in a unique single accent.
Zigarina leaves Marie at the railroad and sets off in search of her lover. She has no money or proper clothes and is in a freezing country, where everyday life is simply about surviving. Perhaps those of us who live comfortable lives should be more inclined to venture into the unknown. Consumed by our “corporate” lifestyles and our desire for material things, perhaps if we took a few risks and explored the unfamiliar, some of us might be happier? The actors are all very strong and a willingness to explore allows them to make the most of their characters, as Gatliff at times gave them very little to go on in terms of script.
The film could almost be described as a documentary, informing us of this far away place, where once Russia, Hungary and Romania all flowed together and a number of different communities co-habited. It’s not a bad watch, and it did hold my interest most of the time but I don’t think I’d make a special effort to sit down and watch it again. Give me Coppola’s Dracula any day.