Transylvania

This film consists of a number of impressionistic paintings. The different emotions are put together on a string of beads. It is true, there is no moralistic message. It will not give exalted thoughts. It is pure gratification. The music is compelling. Do not expect a clear-cut storyline. Do not expect a logical sequence of happenings. Don't expect people to be predictable. If you like surprises:this film has the unexpected behind any bend in the road. It is not a film about a relationship between two human beings. It is ten separate moving images that each have their own character and meaning. By gluing these together the viewer is confronted with the mysteries of life through Toni Gatlif's eyes. You cannot compare this film with any other Gatlif production. Thoroughly recommended.

As far as I am concerned, cinema exists primarily to watch films like Tony Gatlif's Transylvania. It is full of life, love and loss, pain and sorrow, music and dance, culture and superstition. No-one with a heart can help but be moved by this ode to life and the Romany way.

Gatlif has made a career of showcasing the Romany, the culture of the gypsies. Credited with writing, co-writing and arranging virtually all the music in Transylvania, he clearly has a love of music that is infused within his films. This latest effort depicts a woman (Asia Argento) who leaves France and travels to Romania in search of her boyfriend, a gypsy musician.

The infusion of music and dance into the story is pure cinema magic. The cinematography, use of light and use of imagery are all magnificent. The choice of actors, both professional and non-professional, is excellent. Their comings and goings within the film are unpredictable, adding to the believability of the story, as crazy as it gets at times.

Asia Argento really is the star of the film. Her passion, strength and intensity are at the core of the story. Her rendition of gypsy womanhood as Zingarina is for me a landmark performance.

Gatlif showcases the bleak yet beautiful countryside and rural decay of forgotten lands, depicting a way of life that is slowly dying. His love for this culture and respect for those who are part of it is evident, and his depictions of it are electric, exhilarating and moving. The film's ending is amazing.

For me, this is close to as good as a film gets and is my equal favourite for the year so far. There is so much to like about it and I can't use enough superlatives. This is must-see cinema.

come form Transilvania and I lived there as a Hungarian ethnic minority. I watched this film in Budapest, and I liked it very much. Still, some of my Transilvanian friends told me that they are embarrassed to tell other people about this movie, because it shows only the "bad" things about Transilvania, and foreigners will think that this country is full of gypsies and poor people. Well, I don't have this problem. Gypsies do exist in Romania. And anyway, this film is not a documentary. It is a subjective movie, using Transilvanian images, music, impressions. It shows mostly gypsies,yes, but hey, the story IS about gypsies. This film might contain mistakes (for example, they showed Romanians from the Maramures region dancing on a street festival together with Hungarian women wearing costumes from a completely different region). But this doesn't matter! Of course not everybody is gypsy and poor in Translivania. But who would pay to watch a documentary called: FACTS ABOUT TRANSILVANIA?? It gives a general impression, which is not that bad at all. Those who think this country is only miserable, will think this anyway. I was singing loudly the Hungarian, Romanian and gypsy tunes in the cinema, and I was proud to show that I know these songs. It also gave me this mystical feeling of my home country, which I will never lose. People are not better or worse there , but they are different, and I like it. If the film raises curiosities and debates, foreigners will visit the country, and they can make their own opinions. Maybe they won't find witches and magic, but they will definitely sense a special feeling. And for that this film was an excellent means.

Well, actually I was told about the movie by a lady-colleague of mine. Interestingly, she is a Hungarian born in Southern Slovakia, and she has been living for many years in Prague. The movie made her excited. But I told myself: Oh, wasn't her excitement only because she had some roots and historical sentiments there in Transylvania? So I forgot the movie. Some time thereafter, again, my friends told me about the movie. But meanwhile it nearly completely disappeared from Prague cinemas! Clearly as the attendance was not "money-making". Finally, by chance, I discovered the movie's projection in a small, something like "suburb" or forgotten vintage cinema not far away from my house. So me and my friends went there. Not more then 20 people altogether were watching the movie that night... But I have to say that the over-mentioned Hungarian lady-colleague of mine was absolutely right in her feelings. Transylvania is really heart moving movie. Very different from Kusturica's plain mixture of comedy and tragic. Transylvania has been telling us an archetypal story about loosing and finding human bonds, human bodies and human souls. That's why I consider Transylvania as a heart moving movie. It talks about the quality of our hearts. About their weighing by gold and by love. About countries in our hearts and minds. About subconscious and non-conscious powers that direct our values and lives. Transylvania as a country - and as a movie - is the place where people have been still living their very real life; while there in the West humans' life is hardly something more then a process of consuming - the products, goods, sex, thoughts and ideas. So, maybe the main message of the movie Transylvania is in the unspoken words of Zingarina: "It is of no key importance that Transylvania has been coming back to Europe - but just the opposite: that our hearts have free choice of leaving the prison of consumed life and return back to place where we can give our lives their true meanings."

Transylvania (2006)

** (out of 4)

Strange French film has Asia Argento playing a pregnant woman who travels to Romania to locate her lover. When she finds him he turns his back on her so she sets off to discover herself and eventually gets caught up in the country's Gypsy culture. There's been a large storm of controversy over how the country is made to look in this film but I have no opinions on that since I know very little about the country. As for the film, it's a pretty boring affair due in large part to the character Argento plays. Argento delivers a good performance here and really hits some raw energy but her character is so ugly that I had a hard time caring what happened to her. Seeing a pregnant woman constantly throwing down vodka took away some of my feelings for her and although her character is suppose to be going through a hard time it hit me as a crazy woman. Another problem with the film is that it seems to have been written as it went along as there's never a clear path as to what type of film its trying to be. To say the film is uneven might be an understatement. The strangest scene in the movie has to be where Argento's character is in a white robe and gets a milk bath as some sort of ritual. This offers a tad bit of nudity from the actress and this here is certainly the only energy the film has going for it. The actress also offers a look at her rather amazing tattoo on her stomach.