The Earth's Most Beloved Son

a great novel, brick of subtle resistance in Comunist period. a honest adaptation. and impressive Ștefan Iordache performance. for me, remember of high school last year when, in summer, I reading Marin Preda novel imagining its adaptation. my screenplay was different. but the work of Șerban Marinescu is gorgeous. for the accuracy of atmosphere recreation. for the science of details. for the occasion for Ștefan Bănică to make a fabulous role. his last role in a movie. for nuances of evil makes in front by Dorel Vișan or Mircea Albulescu. for image of profaned innocence of Marius Stănescu character. for measure of feelings in Colea Răutu performance. for Matilda by Maia Morgenstern ( in my vision, Matilda must be Tora Vasilescu ). for the music, image and autopsy of an absurd regime.

The title of the movie is somehow paradoxical, since nothing that happens in the movie doesn't come to sustain the idea that might arise from the blunt reception of the title. The main issue that the movie tries to tackle is the issue of the scars that communism leaves on the lives of the ones enduring it, and mostly upon the lives of the learned. The movie comes to cast a diminishing and shameful image upon the level at which the communism used to function in Romania's years under the communist dictature. The level of ignorance that the communism had reached is revealed through the plot of the movie: a man's whole life is ruined for absolutely no reason what so ever. The movie is a masterpiece, as it brings to light the wheakness of the learned man in front of the brute force.

Arguably, the best Romanian movie to date. Benefiting from a powerful screenplay, based on a novel by Marin Preda, a cast composed of the best Romanian actors, excellent directing, the movie is a monument in film for the suffering of Romanian intellectuals in the hands of the communists. Never in the history of mankind, a doctrine created so much suffering for so long, for so many, and this movie is one of the few out there testifying to it. One day, the rest of the world will discover this gem and give it the proper recognition. But then again, that day may never come.

I do not expect this film to be well understood by viewers out of Romania. This tells something certainly about the value, or maybe about the lack of universality of the film, but also tells something about how different history and even life of common people was in Romania compared to other countries, even in Eastern Europe.

The film is an adaptation of a novel by Marin Preda, a controversial novelist who died during the Communist rule soon after the book was published. It tells the story of an intellectual, professor of philosophy whose life is crushed after he is imprisoned on false accusations at the end of the Stalinist era. Basically the first part of the film tells the story of his fight for survival in prison, the second describes his tentative to regain his life after being released. His release is actually only apparent, Romania of the 60s asks from him different types of compromises and crimes, but yet his fight for survival is as tough morally as in prison.

The film is splendidly acted by some of the best Romanian actors. Stefan Iordache who has the lead role would be in another time and another place a mega-star, we can get here a good glimpse of his fabulous acting art. Although suffering from a hesitant story-telling and falling sometimes in non-essential details or character comics, the film is still an important landmark for the Romanian cinema, as well as for the process of recovering the moral and historic values in the Romanian society.

I thought the book by Marin Preda has a lot more substance compared to the movie: Preda explored a lot more the human side of Petrini, there was a lot more introspection and reflection upon the absurdity of the Stalinist times. In fact, most of the characters are more vivid in the book, while in the movie they are dull, dehumanized, ugly, just for the sake of being ugly. Sure, the point of the story is to highlight the tragic nature of the Stalinist repression, but Preda did it with panache and made sure it had all the philosophical underscores worth of a main character ... that was supposed to be a philosopher. The movie is empty of all that, it tries too hard to be provocative and it gets repetitive and tiring after a while. Bleak and dehumanizing.

After reading the book, I felt anger at the immense historic injustice that was allowed to happen (to so many people in the East). A motivating kind of anger. But I only depressed and disappointed at the end of the movie.

The screenplay is mediocre at best. Iordache's performance is linear, unexciting, boring. The scream in his last scene is plain embarrassing. How did that even make the cut? Morgenstern's character is completely off (not on account of Morgenstern's performance though, it's probably a directorial decision): Preda's Matilda was mysterious, attractive, purposeful; the one in the movie plays a marginal role and is plain repugnant. Even the usually masterful Rebengiuc's performance was just OK.

Dorel Visan was quite good as the infamous prison guard Dumnezeu.

The one performance I thought was spot on was Gheorghe Dinica's, with superb delivery of his lines, a spark in his eye, and a DeNiro-esque grin worth all the money. His character was probably the only believable one.

Waiting for a remake of this movie. The book deserves a decent adaptation.