Picnic

Adrian Sitaru shows here the grit to take on an immense risk - and make it worth: a movie made up exclusively of subjective angles: the camera alternatively substitutes itself to each of the three main characters, and also to the secondary and cameo ones. The effect is "BlairWitchian" (or "Cloverfieldesque") and it works perfectly. Far of being just a cinematographic stunt, the method is invested with serious expressive values, contributing to the significant developing of the relationships between the characters.

One should also remark the well built script, the crescendo of terror, the economy of means - everything reminding, in the best possible vein, of Polanski's "Nóz w wodzie" ("Knife in the Water"). Special kudos for the characters, extremely credible, coherent in their inner complexity, realistic but also insolite. Definitely, a lesson in creating live humans on screen, and carry them to unbearable heights of tension.

Finally, we must underscore the tremendous merit of making this valuable piece of art as an independent project, using digital technique and with virtually no budget. Fortunately, it turned out so good, that the producers finished by finding the financing for conversion on film. Definitely, Adrian Sitaru is a new gain for Romanian and European cinema!

I was surprised to see such a good Romanian movie again. Some people might say they are fed-up with mundane personages and prostitutes and adultery, but let me tell you, this is real life - or as Ioana Flora keeps saying in the movie: "This is what it's all about" ("Despre asta-i vorba"), and if many old-timers have no skill do depict them in style, Adrian Sitaru can really do it! His conception is elegant and delicate, and also powerful and cruel, even ruthless - after all, this is what it's all about... Splendid characters, all three of them! Adrian Titieni makes a very realistic maths teacher who is very human and has his own problems, Ioana Flora is so natural and dramatic, in her embittered and stuffy "Iubi", while Maria Dinulescu simply rocks! What a monument of sweetness and poison, my friends - and, all in all, SO REALISTIC! Now this is what it's all about!