Believe it or not, despite the rumors of this being a tedious and boring film, I found it engaging and interesting.
During the last decade, Puiu's films explored in depth the source text of this film, "Three Dialogues" by the russian Belle Epoque theologist and philosopher Solov'ëv. This film feels like the coronation of this study, the ultimate version (following the modernisations that Puiu directed previously). The concept was to figure out if a philosophical dialogue can become a film. I believe that Puiu succeeded, mainly thanks to his personal directorial choices.
While the philosophical themes (which range in a too wide spectrum to be listed, though mostly concerned with ethics and moral philosophy) are depicted interestingly by themselves, it's interesting to see what Puiu adds in his mise-en-scène: not only the location is changed, but interestingly the language: curiously, romanian is almost never heard, as the five aristocrats that debate speak in french, whereas the servants speak hungarian or german, the minoritary languages of transilvania, where the titular manor house is placed. Moreover, sound design and noises, the background movements of characters constitute a completely new parallel story, and contribute to create a sense of reality. Despite apparences this Puiu film is perfectly in league with his hyperralism estabilished in The Death of Mr Lazarescu or Aurora, as it is an aim to represent a real aristocratic setting from the late XIXth century. Let us not forget, for example, that french was the language that eastern european aristocracy chise to speak in situations such as the one depicted in the film.
As for the way the action (or better, the inaction) is shown, there's frequent long takes, but despite expectations they are not tedious or "sleep-inducing": either the camera or the characters keep moving around, preserving dynamicity to the screen.
While the original text is made of of three dialogues, Puiu chose to divide the film in six chapters, each dedicated to one of the five aristocrats involved in the conversations, plus one involving the butler, a silent servant that keeps appearing in the background of the film.
This film easily became instantly one of my favourite romanian films and one of my favourite films from last year.
