There
are not a lot of Deutsch speaking ethnic Germans left in Romania. The
Communists saw to that. Ulli Winkler was fortunate to escape when he could.
Decades later, he will return to the ghost town here he once lived, searching
for the love of his life in Radu Gabrea’s A
Love Story, Lindenfeld (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 San Diego Film Festival.
Germany
was good to Winkler, or “the Chairman” as most of his employees know him. He
even adopted a son, but he never married. The memory of his intended Helga Kerber
simply remained too strong. When the Soviets came to ethnically cleanse Romania’s
Banat region, they swept up Kerber in their net, but they missed Winkler
through a twist of fate. However, a 2005 television report on the presumably
abandoned town of Lindenfeld spurs a flood of memories. Through serendipity,
Winkler soon receives reports his beloved Kerber is still alive. With his
health and faculties slowly but steadily declining, Winkler instructs his loyal
servant-protector Boris take him back to Lindenfeld (a relatively manageable
drive in today’s borderless Europe).
Lindenfeld is an
unabashedly and achingly old fashioned film, it the best way possible. There is
no unfinished business like first love—and Gabrea takes care of business quite
well. The constant strains of Pachelbel’s
Canon are admittedly a bit of a cliché, but the recordings featured on the
soundtrack are unusually lush and pretty. Even if the audience resists, it does
what it is supposed to do.
Victor
Rebengiuc and Victoria Cociaş play the senior Winkler and Kerber with
wonderfully wise maturity. There are no theatrics, thank you very much, but their
ardor feels very real. Yet, the subtlest work might come from Alexandru
Georgescu as the poker-faced but stout hearted Boris, with the sort of
performance that stealthily sneaks up on viewers.
