Cel mai iubit dintre pamânteni

This film adaptation is pure squalidness, a shameful alteration of the book. If he could watch this movie - Marin Preda one of the most successful romanian writers - will be enough to make him turn into his grave and die again. This film adaptation is the worst adaptation in the history of romanian cinema. The book itself is butchered by one untalented director, Șerban Marinescu and one mediocre actor, Mircea Albulescu who came up with the idea of inventing a film character and therewith a horrid scene (prison-rape-homosexual-scene, Albulescu and Iordache). For god's sake, why? Why must be a great book slaughtered in such manner by two uninspired men? Is this some kind of history retribution for the years that we have lived in the dark ages of communism? May be, but Marin Preda doesn't deserve that, that's for sure.

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.

great expectations . and a modest result. not surprising. because the film is only large collection of words, images, brutality and clichés. Ștefan Iordache is the perfect Petrini but the viewer discovers it only as reader of the novel. Ștefan Bănică does the role of his career but that is one of rare good points of film. it is a travel without direction. Șerban Marinescu explores the skin of Marin Preda text but nothing more and that transforms the film in a package without content. only exercises to save the appearances. cold, dark, menacing, the film has a bitter message. but not purpose. and, unfortunately, it becomes one of many films after 1990 who presents only large slices of fury, frustrations, tries to kill the memories about recent past in a teenage style. nothing wrong. only sad when the film declares to be inspired by one of the most significant novel of XX century Romanian literature.

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.

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.