Ceauşescu
was a brutal dictator, but he really did make a public speech on August 21,
1968 condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was designed to
establish his independence from Moscow and garner good PR, both at home and abroad.
The speech was certainly a success in terms of image, but it left Romanians
traveling as tourists within the Eastern Bloc in rather awkward positions. This
is especially true of the German-Romanian Reinholtz family in
screenwriter-director Anca Miruna Lazarescu’s semi-autobiographical That Trip We Took with Dad (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Berlin & Beyond
in San Francisco.
Medically
trained Mihai Reinholtz has not driven his father William and irresponsible
younger brother Emil all the way to East Germany to see the sights. He has secretly
arranged for his father to have life-saving surgery in a Dresden clinic—the only
place where such treatment is available in the Soviet Bloc. Unfortunately, they
headed west just as the East German tanks started heading east. When the columns
roll into Wenceslas Square, East Germany puts all Warsaw Pact tourists on
lock-down, jeopardizing their appointment.
On
the plus side, Mihai meets Ulrike von Syberg, a well-heeled West German leftwing
activist, who had come to the GDR to study Marxism (but to his dismay). Ironically,
he will have an opportunity to continue the relationship when the Romanian embassy
arranges safe passage home through West Germany. Cantankerous old William will
most likely be able to receive his treatment there, as well. However, if Mihai
permanently defects, it will make life a living Hell for his father and brother,
should they return without him.
The
Romanian-born, German-based Lazarescu (who also helmed the excellent short
film, Silent River) absolutely skewers
the radical politics of von Syberg and her clueless fellow New Left activists. Frankly,
they are not just naïve morons. They are willfully ignorant to some extent,
which is why the presence of the German-speaking, truth-telling Reinholtzes is
so awkward for them.
Trip is not so
sentimentally informed by the hard day-to-day choices families living under
socialism had to make all the time, just to survive. Lazarescu also gives us
the emotional grounding and context to understand why some obviously ill-fated decisions
get made despite the inevitable consequences. Nothing is easy for the
Reinholtzes, but it could be worse. They could be Czechoslovakian.
Alexandru
Margineanu is appropriately earnest and frazzled as poor Mihai, while Susanne
Bormann gives some depth to the formerly-shallow von Syberg, so to speak.
However, Razvan Enciu is a standout, convincingly taking Brother Emil on the
widest, most dramatic character development arc, going from an innocent rebel
to a broken young man, old beyond his years.
Trip looks back on the
Communist era with wistful sadness for those who survived under it, but it also
has caustic contempt for those who just didn’t get it at the time. Essentially,
it starts out as a very personal family story, but it subtly evolves into
something more epic. Very highly recommended, That Trip We Took with Dad screens this Saturday (2/10) during
Berlin & Beyond 2018 in San Francisco.
