A World (Still) Fading
In 2018, thirty-one years after the premiere of “The Moromete Family” (1987), dir. Stere Gulea, released a sequel to the acclaimed screen adaptation - “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time”.
In 2018, thirty-one years after the premiere of “The Moromete Family” (1987), director Stere Gulea, alongside Transilvania Film, released a sequel to the acclaimed screen adaptation — “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” The film adapts to the screen the second volume in Marin Preda’s literary series that offered a radiographic look at rural Romania during the turbulent years around World War II, as seen through the fate of the Moromete family. Similarly, the film follows the inner turmoil of the family, already marked by the first stage of its disintegration, now facing another.
Niculae (Iosif Paștina), Moromete’s youngest son and Preda’s alter ego, is fully committed to the path of education. His interest in books coincides with the increasingly widespread Marxist-Leninist ideology, which he embraces with the same dedication he shows toward Russian literary classics such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Meanwhile, Moromete (Horațiu Mălăele), jaded and stubborn as ever (though more introverted than Rebengiuc’s role), drifts past the administrative shifts of collectivization, dodging them through absence and devising defeatist solutions to his family’s property issues.
Gulea revisits and scripts the second volume of Preda’s work, stripping away much of the ideological tension and friction present in the novel — a revisionist take that has already generated discussion. In short, Niculae’s interest in communism, as well as the broader presence of the socialist administrative system, are reduced to a few quick strokes: local opportunists seize power by cozying up to the authorities, red-covered books haunt the country like specters, and the communists swiftly take control and initiate propaganda. This narrative feels extremely familiar, as it reproduces — without critique — the dominant post -’89 discourse on Romania’s socialist period.
But the film’s dramaturgy suffers as a result: first, the tension between Niculae and the world he must confront — along with the family he leaves behind — is significantly diminished. Second, the “arena” in which the fictional universe unfolds lacks the ambiguous, disquieting tones that would have granted the project the promised epistemological depth. Thus, Gulea’s declared intent to explore the nuances of a period of great socio-political confusion in “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” remains unfulfilled.
This feature film can be view only with a Romanian IP address.The black-and-white cinematography, signed by director of photography Vivi Drăgan Vasile, and the rounded-rectangle frame (a nod to the analog format) aim to evoke the original film stock used in the first installment, also shot by Drăgan Vasile. However, certain details — such as the occasionally awkward use of the steady cam (tracking shots in which the camera glides unnaturally behind the character, the subtle but noticeable jolts) — disrupt the suspension of disbelief that such a production demands. Meanwhile, drone footage signals both the real-world passage of time between the two films and the emergence of new tools available to today’s filmmakers — tools seemingly used more out of technical enthusiasm than expressive necessity.
The sets and costumes, meticulously constructed to suggest an “authentic” atmosphere, come across as replicas. A sense of a living museum, of re-enactment, settles over the course of the film. As a result, the fictional universe begins to resemble an informative attraction more than a site of derived knowledge — the kind more typical cinema. Gulea’s desire to complete or balance Marin Preda’s work on screen with aspects the author presumably could not include due to state censorship is ultimately limited to a reinterpretation aligned with today’s dominant ideology and the contemporary notion of common-sense.
Gulea’s recurring interest in the socialist period — visible in his post-revolution films such as “Fox Hunter” (1993), “State of Things” (1995), or “I am an Old Communist Hag” (2013) — grants “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” a kind of dignity absent from other recent entries in the “communist exploitation” genre. In the absence of a more nuanced development of the political dimension, Gulea’s film focuses (not without skill) on the story’s more intimate, desolate core: Niculae’s rupture from his family, his step into a new world in which he is to become a celebrated writer, and his personal and intellectual struggles to make sense of the changes around him.
Both “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” and its continuation, “The Moromete Family 3 (Father and Son)” (2024), can be seen as vanity projects. The approach is what one might call middle-brow: serious enough not to be mistaken for blatantly commercial fare, but not ambitious enough to stand out. Articulate and glossy, promoted for the nostalgic appeal of its subject matter as well as its cast, “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” earned its moment of fame without managing to leave a lasting impression. Like a replica museum of Marin Preda’s village, Siliștea Gumești — and of the era that Preda writes about in his magnum opus — “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” adds to the classic novel an accolade, crafting a conciliatory bridge between an author Gulea seeks to redeem for the present and a complex past that refuses simplification.
(Emil Vasilache, cinepub.ro)
This week's premiere: “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time” by Stere Gulea, Thursday, April 24th, at 9:00 p.m EEST, on CINEPUB.RO
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