Different metronome, same old pendulum
The current political picture in Romania is very blurry indeed. Some people are scared to the point of anxiety, others are downright angry. That's why we show today "Metronom" by Alexandru Belc (2022)
I decided to premiere the movie "Metronom" immediately after the Sunday panic attack of the entire nation. Or, well, two thirds of it, the rest being happy, precisely because it's "poor in spirit". I chose "Metronom" because (said the festival reviewers) it was about villainy and treachery, betrayal and friendship, dignity and moral misery. Oxymoronic relationships suited to the people who perpetually mix black and white to turn everything gray. Against the backdrop of an era still (apparently) white, happy (Led Zeppelin at the interwar block...) before the last decade of the RSR: black. An era not very distant, there are still survivors - I count myself among them.
I expected way too much from "Metronom", I should have gone to see it with no expectations. It's true, I ask enormously: how can someone talk about your youth when they have their youth? By this I don't mean that only Puiu or Mungiu & co have the right to talk about communism. But that, in order to touch such a delicate subject as the bud of first love crushed by a wicked boot, you need not to know, but to feel. That's what the movie lacks.
I wish Metronom would have helped to send an alarm signal in these troubled times. But I think it just makes it more confusing - like the movie itself. I don't think we're a polarized nation, divided between an idealistic left and a fascist right: we all meet in the middle, mediocre in both happiness and sorrow, to the left or right of the short path of a frog's life that dreams of buffalo.
Or am I wrong? However, I leave it to my younger colleague from the editorial team to write the text of the premiere which, this time I have no doubt, is a public success.
(Lucian Georgescu, cinepub.ro)
Different metronome, same old pendulum
The current political picture in Romania is blurry, very blurry indeed. Some people are scared to the point of anxiety, others are downright angry. There are also a few curious viewers like me who prefer to take some time out and look back analytically - which is what happened to me with the help of the movie we're showing you today, "Metronom", the feature-length fiction debut of Alexandru Belc, awarded at Cannes 2022 in the "Un certain regard" section.
The story is set in 1972 in Bucharest and follows a group of high school students who would rather attend Woodstock in '69 than a "tea dance" in a communist living room. They do, however, enjoy the music (the movie's producers' effort here is to be applauded) of The Doors and Janis Joplin. And just as everyone retreats to their own little corner of the room (as befits such a party, the air of which is full of age-specific hormones), the house is actually invaded by security officers who legitimize them. Out of the blue. The reason: an illegal attempt to send an appreciative letter to Cornel Chiriac, the host of the "Metronom" program on Radio Free Europe. It seems that a young man from the group, Sorin (Șerban Lazarovici), Ana's (Mara Bugarin) boyfriend, has snitched on his friends in exchange for helping his family, who will now be able to emigrate to Germany.
You can watch this movie only if you have a Romanian I.P. addressThe same type of help Biriș (Vlad Ivanov in a role already typical of himself) tries to offer Ana, assuring her entrance to any college she wants; all she has to do to enjoy a "bright future" is to write the declaration "exactly as it happened". She wants something else instead. She wants to understand why things work the way they do. What has it got to do with her university or with Sorin's permanent departure to Germany? Why does Sorin have to go? It's just the way things are; her father (Mihai Călin), a respected teacher in society, knows that. The professor understands Ana's anger and her desire for justice; he keeps silent and plays the games of authority instead, driven by a visceral fear. He is brought to his knees both by the system and by his wife, who seems too uninvolved in her dull family, composed of an intelligent but blasé husband and a brave but naive daughter. Sorin, the little snitch and Ana's first love, is nothing more than the young version of the girl's father: both choose to do "what they have to" to do well.
Ana is the only character driven by a certain sense of vigilantism, but she gives it up rather easily. The fight for freedom seems like a mirage, and the fighter an undead when all around her is silence and unanimous obedience.
Labels such as "traitor", " infiltrator", "propagandist" still exist today in other forms. If you sympathize with one side, you are an occultist neo-nazi; on the other side, a colourful neo-communist. If you position yourself in the middle, shrugging your shoulders, you are ignorant: therefore worthy of being ignored and deserving of everything that happens to you. And it is precisely between these pendulum swings, lurking somewhere in there, that the truth lies, only we don't see it anymore because of the bickering and accusations. If, in the case of the young wannabe hippies in "Metronom", the enemy was clear, today's socio-political landscape seems to be a soup of doctrines that even those who adhere to them do not taste all the way through, or immediately change their dish. Perhaps this is what it feels like to write history... and we will come back for a clear analysis in another 35 years.
In the meantime, we have (and if we don't, we organize) things to keep us active. Until the end of the week, we are keeping an eye on the cineMAiubit International Student Festival, with which we have organized the SEMNE'N'CADRU competition.
Călin Bocian, one of the participants in the competition and a student of UBB Cluj, made a poetic video-essay based on the cinematography of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu - whom we would have celebrated today, December 12. We particularly appreciated his work, which is why we invite you to watch it on our platform - here. In the absence of a filmological commentary per se, the essay was nominated hors-concours. We offer the film "Minoru and Isamu", by Călin Bocian, the special mention of Cinepub!
(Elena Călinoiu, cinepub.ro)
Premiere of the week: Metronom, by Alexandru Belc, Thursday, December 12, at 21:00, on CINEPUB.RO
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