Pororoca

To build a character is more than long fixed shoting. Yes, it takes effort to come up with a script that contributes to psychological build up. This is another example of Romanian cinematography that lacks imagination and technical craft. Actors play well, but they cannot save the entire production.

Aside from the wholly unintelligible title (and, yes, I am fluent in Romanian), the film is depressing and way too long. Every scene is drawn out to interminable lengths, as the camera lingers on unnecessary details. I get it that the director was trying to establish a mood, but it comes at the cost of making the viewer impatient for something to happen. Something eventually does happen but it's not worth the pain of getting there.

The acting is good; the principal actor, Bogdan Dumitrache, is very good. The dialogue is credible. The production values are good. One just wishes this had been brought to a close in 90 minutes rather than 152.

When a large wave forms in the Amazon and other rivers in Brazil, the great roar that echoes for kilometers towards the mouth of the sea is called "pororoca". When it meets the ocean current, a wave is formed, also called "pororoca", which runs in reverse, upstream and causes both devastating and beneficial effects, without missing the sporting one, when surfers travel on their boards over the pororoca, reaching set records for staying on the same wave, beyond 30 minutes.

A similar effect of the overwhelming run of the pororoca is what an unexpected event produces in the lives of a Bucharest couple, when husband Tudor takes his little children Ilie and Maria to the park, while wife Cristina stays home. And then Maria disappears... The devastating effect of the clash between the love current of the small Romanian family and the evil current of the kidnapper (he or she) reaches even brute violence and death, the couple's disintegration and, consequently, what remains of the family unit.

Let us not imagine a sweetened melodrama like «Kramer vs. Kramer», but rather a detailed and meticulous journey through the psyches of Tudor and Cristina, which the director and screenwriter Constantin Popescu chose to describe during long, tense and feverish 154 minutes. Tudor's obsession and Cristina's madness grow simultaneously and distance them in a very dramatic way. I think you have to be bold to narrate events of such intensity, without the need for quick cuts or ellipses, so that we feel what the protagonists are going through.

The film highlights Popescu's precise and confident direction and Liviu Mãrghidan's agile photography. Like accomplices, both filmmakers describe the disappearance of Maria and the commotion it causes in the park in a 15-minute sequence shot. And without a doubt the performances of Bogdan Dumitrache (Tudor) and Iulia Lumânare (Cristina) are of great acuity and perception. A highly recommended motion picture, not to be missed.

Yes, film is depresing, but It has to be like this... how one can feel having no idea where his child is. The biggest pain a parent can have! You can feel their pain. Movie is two hours and a half long, but you realised it only after the ending.

Two hours and a half passed very quickly. This if you don't follow the action, but the changes in characters mind. Maybe the most powerful Romanian film made after "After hills". There is a resemblance with Zvyagintsev "Loveless" but goes dipper. Untill the mind blowing final scene, the film is very quiet, despite the tragic situation. In thos quite there is an inner scream that the main character exposes extraordinary. If you want to see the decomposition of a man through pain, watch it.