New Romanian Cinema ’14: I’m an Old Communist Hag

Emilia was allowed to shake Ceauşescu’s hand because she was a Party member, who didn’t have sweaty palms. For a while, that encounter gave her great prestige in her state-run factory, but she tried to avoid discussing it after the revolution. Nonetheless, her nostalgia for the past is rather well known in Stere Gulea’s I’m an Old Communist Hag (trailer here), which screens during Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2014.

She was once an industrial foreman, but now Emilia and her husband Ţucu make do on their pensions and a bit of bartering-up. If you ask her, she will tell you the old dictator did a better job managing the economy. At least, that is how she remembers it. However, her memory is selective and she may have only noticed what she wanted to back in the day. She will slowly and only partially come to realize this when she visits Madame Stroescu to have a dress made for her expat daughter Alice’s sudden visit.

Madame Stroescu was always a favorite of Alice’s, but Emilia never realized how much the gentle woman suffered under Communism. She should have been an accomplished artist, but she was forced to work as a seamstress instead. With her eyesight now failing, even such work is beyond her, but she still hopes to have her late father’s confiscated tailor shop restituted to her. It is an inconvenient episode for Emilia to process, especially with the 2010 financial crisis swirling around her. In fact, that is why Alice and her American husband Alan have suddenly arrived. Both have been let go by their multinational employer and now find themselves at loose ends.

Despite its hot-button title, Hag is a restrained film that eschews all ideologies in favor of human relationships. Emilia is not a bad person. She just happened to do somewhat better than her neighbors during the old regime and is now experiencing a bit of a rough patch due to the new more cyclical system. Nevertheless, Valeria Seciu’s haunted Stroescu unambiguously serves as the film’s conscious and moral corrective. It is a quiet but powerful performance that undercuts Emilia’s romanticized memories.

While it is a more restrained and forgiving role than her celebrated turn in Child’s Pose, Luminita Gheorghiu still commands the screen as Emilia, embracing her complications. Ana Ularu counterbalances her well as Alice, the daughter who sees the past era in its full historical context, but struggles with her own personal and professional failings. Texan Collin Blair’s Alan resembles a young Michael Rapaport, which works rather well in context. There are probably a dozen additional supporting players playing former colleagues and family members, who are quite colorful, but feeling unfailingly real. Still, it is Gheorghiu and Seciu who really define the film with their contrasting presences.

Gulea was a rather bold critic of the Communist regime in past films, so Hag should not be dismissed as revisionism, but more of a meditation on how folks get by, regardless of the times. It is a nice film, elevated by several thoughtful performances and a lively yet elegiac score composed by Vasilé Sirli. Recommended for those interested in seeing a different side of Romanian cinema, I’m an Old Communist Hag screens this afternoon (12/7) at the Walter Reade Theater and tomorrow (12/8) in Long Island at the Jacob Burns Film Center, as part of Making Wave: New Romanian Cinema.

New Romanian Cinema ’14: Where Are You Bucharest?

Twice voter apathy has saved Romanian President Traian Băsescu’s bacon. Each time he was impeached by parliament, it required the ratification of a majority of all eligible voters through a national referendum. While overwhelming majorities voted to give him the boot, they fell short of the legal threshold. Consequently, many Romanians are a tad disenchanted with the current political scene. Vlad Petri captures a vérité kaleidoscope of frustration at a series of 2012 protests in Where Are You Bucharest? (trailer here), which screens during Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2014.

Viewers immediately get the sense the anti- Băsescu protests are way more personal than ideological, even though they take place in University Square, the storied site of many 1989 demonstrations against Ceauşescu’s Communist regime. After all, if you do not like Băsescu’s ideology, just wait a minute and it will change. After initially styling himself in the manner of a Scandinavian social democrat, Băsescu has evolved into Romania’s Silvio Berlusconi, without the gleeful disregard for decorum. Indeed, Băsescu’s shadow hangs over Where in more ways than one.

Arguably, Petri’s film could be used to make the case Romania has become a mature democracy that tolerates dissent. Even though there is quite a bit of finger pointing directed at the police, the film never documents any seriously problematic actions, especially compared to the crackdown on the Umbrella demonstrators in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district. Frankly, most of the cops here look like they would much prefer to be anywhere else but University Square.

In a case of good news-bad news, the absence of any major human rights abuses means Where is mostly just a lot of people yelling at each other, which gets old after a while. We totally get everyone thinks Băsescu is a corrupt jerkweed, but there isn’t any “then what?” It’s just more chanting and arguing over trivial differences.

Băsescu may very well be a ragingly problematic president, but on paper he is considerably more interesting than the demonstrators demanding his head. In the 2004 presidential debate, he totally threw his opponent off stride with the rhetorical bombshell: “You know what Romania's greatest curse is right now? It’s that Romanians have to choose between two former Communist Party members.” That’s a real conversation ender.

You can tell just from a little peak that Romanian politics is a fascinating, rough-and-tumble world. However, we’re already dealing with a glut of Arab Spring protest docs, where the stakes are even higher. Petri talks with many pleasantly eccentric protestors, who actually make Romania look like an infinitely more inviting country to visit, but as cinema it overstays its welcome. Where is certainly earnest and well-intentioned, but Andrei Gruzsniczki’s Quod Erat Demandstrandum and Maya Vitkova’s Viktoria are the can’t-miss films at this year’s festival. For those looking for a protest fix nonetheless, Where Are You Bucharest? screens this Saturday (12/6) and Monday (12/8) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of Making Wave: New Romanian Cinema.