Poppy Field

It is scary to see the Romanian reality that some of us know so well displayed on screen in such strong tones. For me, being a victim of a similar assault as portrayed in the movie, it was familiar and disturbing, at the same time. I commend the creators of this movie for their courage. The Romanian society still is exactly as we see it on screen.

This is a brave and poignant movie. It is very simple in its pace and setting and could easily be set for a play.

We know from Polish and Georgian movies that it's very complicated to be openly gay in Eastern European countries. Poppy Field is another illustration of this fact.

Cristi is no hero and no victim. As many closeted gay men, he is caught up in his contradictions and spends a lot of time and energy lying to himself and to the others around him. But you can only maintain the façade for so long, and then cracks start to show. The path to authenticity seems like a crucifixion, and the homophobia expressed in the movie is closely associated with Christianism.

My favorite scene is when Cristi is left alone in a red, empty movie theater. We can feel the tempest going on in his skull. His career, his privacy, his life are all at stakes in one day.

A great movie about resilience, bad faith, and sexual minorities.

Loved the feel of this movie, the acting and the observational directing style. I felt for the lead character's complex life and it has a hopeful message ultimately. This film will travel to many festivals and be a hit I imagine and it is an important film too.

If you expected a traditional drama from this film, you'll be a little lost at the beginning... I know I was.

Drama tends to be more concise - every scene and line is supposed to contribute to the arc of the story. But 'Poppy Field' is made to look more like a documentary, with rougher scene changes, spontaneous camera walks, and seemingly mundane lines that doesn't necessarily do much to the story... because there's no real story as such.

What the film does is patching and summing up the various moments of Cristi's day. And there we eventually get a sort of a pattern, a bigger picture, and inner turmoil that oozes out from the character against the given situation.

In that regard, it's well done. Actors and scenes are all realistic and believable. But in the end, probably because I haven't shed off my expectation from more traditional drama, I could not help but feel a bit 'so what?'. I just wanted it to be a bit more invested in Cristi as a person and get a little bit more comprehensive view of the LGBTQ situation in Romania... probably the very fact it left me hungry means the film was successful given its stylistic choice.

Somewhat interesting story of a gay police officer caught in a conflict during a police interaction with homophobic radicals in a gay movie theater. The conflict is that there is someone in the theater who knows this police officer & that he is gay & there is a minor altercation between the two. The rest of this very short film contains extremely vague, seemingly purposeful, one on one dialogue between various police officers ending with the most unusual, puzzling and, of course, vague line in the film. In all honesty, I am not at all sure what this is trying to say, but it is somewhat interesting contemplating it's possible various meanings. The acting is solid, but the title is also unclear.