California Dreamin' (Nesfarsit)

It's funny how similar are all the comments posted by the Romanian viewers. The first time I saw the movie I thought "God, is it possible to never forget such a sad existence? Such a bitter-sweet look upon our life? The so-called *balkanism*?..." Do we ever make a jump, like a time-lap, and have different views on what do we do every day?

Further more beyond the "national sport" (as someone once called it) of self-complaining lies the truth. A certain truth that hurts. We can all see the progress of the Romanian society; we think that the rest of the world doesn't. We point the finger on "the other side" or "the good side", so there shall be no mistakes... Well, I've been once in Capalnita, and I had a shock because after seeing this movie I realized it's all there! There's no need for sets, there's no need for trained actors... The grass still grows between the pieces of the sidewalk in the railroad station... Only today's mobile phones and the car models have changed.

Why should a film director make a "more expensive film" or a "non-low-budget" one? Do you really care about how much did it cost? Or, should really be the film an accurate projection of the real life? Was it ever so? No matter what good or wrong you you'll see in the recent Romanian society, there are certain people living in this country who can make genuine art. And finishing a work of art is utopia.

I couldn't avoid to observe Nemescu's care for details and real life like shots. Many excellent Romanian film directors tend to have a keen sense for the dynamism of the short takes by "wearing" the camera like a peer of glasses. No soundtrack is needed except the music within the scene. In the most cases the human eye concentrates on human subjects just like Nemescu's lens did in this masterpiece (from normal to long focal lens, say 85mm or even more than 200mm in some cases). One surrealist shot (with the "Romanian-made" Efel tower) caught my attention as an exception. No image stabilizer is needed when you make a non-commercial movie. On the contrary! Usually, in a very dynamic scene -like a fight- your eye captures only bits of shocking details, cause you're frightened. Complementary artificial lighting is quite moderate if not absent. Sure, this version of the displayed picture needed further cuts and refinements. And this is not because the picture is "too long". That's Hollywood's paradigm, cause art in general doesn't deal with units of measurement. Strangely as it seems for the "outsiders", for those who consider the play of the actors and the action are overreacted, this film can generate pure emotions, antipodes, anger, hope, deliverance, fervour, grace... And this is the main purpose of the 7-th art.

Yes, it's a great movie, even if it's unfortunately unfinished; like an unexploded bomb in the Romanian consciousness... But is there anything "finished" or it has ever been something really "finished" in our country, Romania? Maybe Cristian Nemescu new why it's "endless".

"California Dreamin' (Nesfarsit)" is one of the finest movies Romanian cinema has ever produced. While the unfortunate death of young director Cristian Nemescu left the film unfinished, the movie has been put together according to Mr. Nemescu's plans.

There are many layers of discourse in this movie that develop as main lines of the narrative - on one hand, there is a sad, cynical, and auto-meditative look at the Romanian society in its purest, unaltered form; on the other hand, the movie speaks of the obsession of a generation of Romanians, that have been waiting for the Americans to liberate them ever since the Second World War; when those two lines meet, incredible things happen; and last, but not least, it shows the personal development of a few characters that are very relevant for Romanians today.

Being a Romanian, I don't usually like Romanian films - many of them are irrelevant, are exorcising demons that have no relevance for us today (like "12:08 Bucharest"); but Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin' (Unfinished) is furiously funny, outrageously cruel, infinitely critical of Romania and Romanians, and it manages that by simply showing the facts, and not making one personal interpretation.

A brilliant movie done by a great movie maker. May we all remember Cristi forever.

This movie is definitely in my Top-5 of 2007, along with "The life of Others".

It's just amazing to see how creative artists from Romania and the Balkans can be. The humor and general spirit of this movie reminds me a lot of Emir Kusturica's talent.

Too sad the director died a year ago in a car crash, 28 year old only.

Obviously, the best flicks don't come from Hollywood lately. Wanna know why ? It's because foreign movies are not ruled by profit-only oriented producers.

It's about "Art" first. Remember ?... Cinema is an art form, not just your regular supermarket product! That's why capitalism is (most often) incompatible with good movies.

With this movie, you'll get another proof confirming this theory.

All of us, when tired, look for an easy and full of fun or action movie in a Hollywood style. However, once in a while, sooner rather than later, is not bad watching a movie that makes us use a little our brain in conjunction with our emotions. California Dreamin' is such a movie. First of all, you must take into account that this movie was not post-processed almost at all due to the tragically death of its director. It is useless to think how it would have been looked if it was finished by Nemescu. We have to look at it as it is. Even like this, movie was brilliantly directed making me remember of Antonioni's Blow-Out. Lots of people would not like it because it shows too much poverty or does not show all aspects of Balkan's life or just because is not a Hollywood movie. Let's be straight, no movie gives you a panorama about a region's life, for this you should watch News or read magazines. Movies give you a vision built by a group of people starting with the screenwriter and ending with its director. You may agree with it or not but this is not important. Important is if after a while it makes you think and if it does the movie was not useless. Others didn't like the movie being ambiguous but they forget that this is an art movie which is not giving you solutions, but based on presented facts you have to find the answers by yourself and no wonder if each person will find different conclusions because after all we are different from each other. Or this is the greatest merit of this movie: makes you think about a lot of things among which why life is so hard when can be easier. Obviously this movie was a hard option for Nemescu but eventually because of this option it is his postmortem triumph. In the end, this movie is not an image of Balkans but an image which can be applied to 80% of this world. The feelings and emotions included in it can be applied to 100% of this world. It is tragic Nemescu died after his first movie, but it is fortunate he left as legacy such a movie rather than a regular "big hit".

I'll begin with a piece of trivia: it's very funny to see that all among the comments about this movie, the worst are originating from Serbia. Why? Because the subject is approaching in an objective way (not a demonizing one) Romania's cooperation with the N.A.T.O. forces, during the Kosovo crisis at the end of the last century. (Besides this, it's significant to see that Mladen Ilic is inventing faults, in his drive to dis-consider the movie - or, perhaps, the poor man is just a profane spectator who has no grasp of the profession; if this be the case, he is excused).

Another piece of trivia is that, after the press screening of the movie, the writer was almost coming to blows with me, because my public comments during the conference had included a certain criticism. (Fortunately, now we are okay again.) To get to the point, I should say that my official review of the movie is pretty detailed, and any Romanian-reading user can read it on Cinemagia or Liternet (unfortunately, I can't post the links here, since the IMDb rules forbid it; but you know what I'm speaking about). The important thing is that "California Dreamin' (Unfinished)" is indeed one of these golden movies of Romanian's present day's generation. It expresses an unmistakable Romanian note, in style, content and feeling, and also a definitory trait of its sadly departed author, the talented an exceptionally rigorous Cristian Nemescu (here comes the THIRD piece of trivia: we fought like mad on the Cinemagia Forum - but, thank God, we made up one year before his tragic demise).

A very important piece of info: Cristi Nemescu had the habit to shoot much more than it was meant to get into the movie, and then to ruthlessly re-organize and cut short his footage, while editing. It was his own way to reach the maximum level of his expression. Still, because of his death, the producer and crew decided to keep as much as possible of his shot footage - out of respect for his work. This is why the movie remained so long and somewhat dissipated in the last quarter.

The good news is that even those scenes are well done, precise and compelling, so the fault belongs only to the structural principles, not also to the pictures as such. Although loosely articulated, boring it doesn't become, that final section! Putting together all the good and bad points, "California Dreamin' (Unfinished)" remains one of the best Romanian movies of all times - and, more than that: as an East European movie in the widest sense. Highly recommended viewing - if you have an atom of cinematographic taste, you won't regret it one bit!