La postura del hijo

A haunting slide-of-life drama from Romania, "Child's Pose" explores the strained relationship between a middle-aged mother and her adult son, set within the context of an unspeakable human tragedy.

Cornelia Keneres, portrayed with masterful understatement and restraint by Luminita Gheorghiu, is a haughty, emotionally aloof woman who, nevertheless, just can't seem to cut the cords that bind her to her only child, Barbu (Bogdan Dumitrache). Barbu, of course, resents his mother's endless interference in his life, an interference that is only intensified when he tragically runs over and kills a 14-year-old boy who's crossing a freeway on which Barbu is driving recklessly. Because Barbu seems devoid of initiative in trying to make things right with both the legal system and the family of the victim, Cornelia launches into full Mama Bear mode, lavishing large sums of money in her wake as she attempts to clean up the life-shattering mess her son has made for himself and others. Is Cornelia now paying the consequences for treating her son as a child for so long? Is that why he now finds himself unable to step up to the plate and accept responsibility for his actions as a mature adult should?

Filmed in a wholly realistic and naturalistic style, "Child's Pose" is about as far from melodrama as a movie about life-and-death issues could possibly be. There are no grand speeches, no emotional outbursts springing from the tragic events of the story. The movie makes us feel as if we are eavesdropping on these people as they go about the business of trying to make sense of an entirely senseless situation. As such, we get to witness first-hand the agony and grief, the bitterness and guilt, and the thirst for redemption that the various characters are going through.

As embodied by the extraordinary Gheorghiu, Cornelia becomes a fascinatingly complex character made up of any number of inconsistencies and contradictions. For instance, she's constantly deriding Barbu for not being a man, for making a mess of his life and not fulfilling the hopes she and his father had for him when he was younger. Yet, it is her very insistence on meddling, mothering him and stepping in to solve all his problems that is the key factor in making him this way. And is she truly moved by the concerns of the grieving parties or is she motivated more by the fate of her own son and the guilt she might be feeling for the way she raised him?

Flawlessly written and directed by Cailin Peter Netzer (with Razvan Radulescu as co-writer), the movie ends on a powerful note, one that hints at the barest possibility for reconciliation and redemption for the individuals involved. It's a largely wordless moment, heartbreakingly silent and obliquely shot, and it is a moment that will linger long in the memory of anyone who sees it.

I happened to catch a screening of the film attended by the director and some of the actors, followed by a short Q&A. This sort of effort is part of a greater plan to bring appraised Romanian films closer to the Romanian audience, while also creating an association with the people responsible for their success, more often than not "against the odds".

What sets Netzer's film apart from some of the other recent Romanian works of cinema is its sardonic humor which works best when it's aimed at the characters and not at some of the pervasive practices of society. I've personally always felt that personal stories, meaning character stories, always came in second to some grand piece of social commentary, usually on the communist background of the country, in most of the acclaimed Romanian cinema of the 21st century. Not to say that such commentary lacks relevance, but there's just more to modern life than its dark red heritage.

Of course, "Pozitia Copilului" is deeply rooted in antics which one could call symptomatic of Romania and as a means of characterization, the backdrop is justifiable. Occasionally though, when certain aspects come across a bit too hard pressed, they do a disservice to the otherwise excellent balance of a difficult story. This does in no way undermine the beautifully detailed portrait of the film's main character, a highly controlling, bossy, arrogant, mean-spirited mother whose faults go quite a way to being redeemed by the passionate dedication with which she tries to protect her son, who had killed a child in a car accident. The ambivalence is so finely portrayed by Luminita Gheorghiu that both the moments of involuntary humor and the moments of pure drama work just as well.

It's ironic that Mrs. Gheorghiu also played in "Moartea Domnului Lazarescu", a film I found to be close at heart with "Pozitia Copilului", in that it relies heavily on a complex central character and its critique is subtle, yet scathing. I'd go so far as to say that these kind of films, while still dominated by a type of post-modernist bleakness, can lead a shift of focus to the greater importance of characters as individuals in Romanian movies, not only as symbol stand-ins.

Romania has become one of my favorite go-to countries for international cinema. Its movies certainly aren't laugh riots, but they're fascinating in their compelling grimness.

"Child's Pose" isn't anywhere nearly as depressing as other Romanian films I've seen ("The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" comes to mind), but it's still a very mournful and sad story about a spoiled brat rich "kid" (his age is never stated that I remember, but he's easily in his late 20s at least) who kills a child in an auto accident and then sits back while his overbearing mother tries to use his family's affluence to buy their way out of the consequences. The dynamic between the mother and son is fascinating, and Luminita Gheorghu as the mother gives one of the best female performances of the past year. She creates a wholly believable character that feels like the kind of person you might actually come across in actuality; she's not exactly a bad person, but at the same time she's a bit of a monster in her single-minded determination to make her and her family's lives as easy as possible without being able to maintain any perspective on what the world is like for others who are not as fortunate.

The climactic scene in which she visits the parents of the dead child and then prattles on about herself and her own son, hijacking the parents' grief for her own and making the situation all about her, is a quietly masterful feat of acting and writing. It felt SO authentic and so like people and situations I've dealt with directly myself. I wish the film had ended with that instead of giving us a forced redemptive ending that felt a tad false, but it packs a wallop nonetheless.

Grade: A

it is new demonstration about values and rules and game of influence from the East. a dark portrait of Romania, more complex than it seems be at the first sigh, impressive, powerful and touching. a mother protecting her son. without any price. an accident. and a poor family. and examples of admirable acting. from Romanian realities, nothing surprising. the family remains a fortress. many mothers , in the situation of Cornelia , are adepts of the same solutions. and this is the motif for discover this film. for the splendid job of Luminița Gheorghiu. for Bogdan Dumitrache as Barbu. for the levels of a crisis. and for the clash between two social circles. the basic virtue of the film - it has one of the most inspired ends.

With Pozitia Copilului (Child's Pose) the Romanian cinema seems to complete a cycle that started almost a decade ago with Moartea Domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu). The path was marked by a number of prizes at important cinema festivals around the world, with the first candidacy of a Romanian film for an Academy Award, but more important by the recognition by viewers that Romania is one of the locations where some of the most interesting movies come from, and that a specific style, a consistent set of themes, and a typology of characters combine to make the Romanian cinema distinct from other film schools. It did help that many of the actors in these films are constant collaborators of the leading directors of the 'wave', some of them becoming familiar faces to world cinema spectators. Luminita Gheorghiu and Bogdan Dumitrache - the lead actors here - acted also in Moartea Domnului Lazarescu, while Vlad Ivanov was the evil figure in 4,3,2.

As many of the good Romanian films in this period Calin Peter Netzer's movie can be seen and interpreted at multiple layers. One of them is composed of the social realities of Romania more than two decades after the fall of the communism. Class disparities are more obvious than in other places and contrast with the forced (and false) egalitarianism that dominated the Romanian society for most of the second half of the 20th century. The introductory scenes build for the viewer the context of the relations of the mid-upper class where the main heroes belong, with bourgeois occupations and family crisis, stylish social events and opera master classes. The obsessive relationship between the dominant mother and the spoiled son who seems to behave like an ingrate brute defines the second layer, the one of the personal relations between the characters. When the road accident that turns the world of the heroes upside down happens, the heroes will be obliged to make contact with the other Romania, the one of the pauper country people, with course manners but maybe with more character and moral strength. The system of relations and corruption is immediately put in motion by the mother, trying to protect her son and make him avoid the consequences of his behavior - a social comment about today's Romania which does not go lost neither for the Romanian nor for the foreign viewer. While this part is more clearly cut, there is no moral judgment made on the rest of the relations, and this is a smart choice made by the director.

The rest is left to the actors and they are simply said wonderful. Luminita Gheorghiu as the possessive mother and Bogdan Dumitrache as the traumatized son who makes all the wrong moves at the wrong moments in order to cut-off the invisible umbilical cord play one of the most meaningful and highly charged mother-son relationships that I have seen lately. Most of the actors in the supporting cast give sincere and expressive performances, which I would rather describe not as acting but as living their roles. A few memorable scenes (the master class at the beginning and the final scene of the confrontation with the family of the kid killed in the accident) may live in the memory of the viewers even longer than the rest of the film. Dealing with a subject that could have easily turned into melodrama or soap opera Pozitia Copilului succeeds to make a sharp social comment that works well with the more universal story of a suffocating love which is touched by miscommunication and tragedy.