This movie tells the story of Chiscan an 18-year-old youth who blames his mother for a bad upbringing, which is why he has landed up in jail. He is just 2 weeks away from being released, when his mother suddenly reappears after being absent for some years and announces that she wants to take Chiscan’s younger brother (who Chiscan has raised for eight years) back to Italy to live with her. Chiscan is a charismatic but tough cookie, whose sheer determination has helped him survived, and now he simply wants just two things from his life. He is desperate to save his sibling from having their mother ruin his life too, and at the same time he wants to enjoy the company of a sweet and attractive young prison trainee that he has become smitten with. Simple and exemplary desures that are quite creditworthy, but when he resorts to some inexplicable violence to achieve these, we lose all sympathy with him …. and start to question the movie too.
The violence that pervades throughout is very realistic because they were not actors but actual inmates playing these roles. Up to that part I was intrigued with Chican’s story and wanted to know how it would pan out: it is after all a powerful piece.
This movie is part of the nouveau Romanian film movement that has attracted international acclaim as brave new realistic cinema (in fact this one won the prestigious Silver Bear Award in Berlin last year). It started in 2005 with ‘The Death of Mr. Lazarescu’ a smash hit black comedy that totally depressed me …. and then in 2007 there was the one that still resounds with me ‘4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days’ about illegal abortions that I never want to have to sit through again, brilliant as it may have been. They are all tough topics for a tough crowd, and I’m still not sure if I want to be part of it.
R.T.V. If you a fan of movies shot on hand held cameras with no annoying soundtracks throughout and with a tad too much violence, then this could be for you. You may not actually ‘enjoy it’ per se, BUT maybe like me it will all stick in your mind for days after.
P.S. Warning : There is no whistling involved at all in the making of this movie.
★★★★★★★
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