Gadjo dilo

Wow !! Where do they get these amazing people. Definately not Hollywood

that's for sure. I can't say I've seen a more sincere film, the raw energy running through this film still makes me crack a smile or shed a tear whenever I think about it.

"Gadjo Dilo" shows the trip of a young man in search of a voice that he fell in love with. Stéphane (Roman Duris) is a musicologist that just follows his guts, his instinct, to find the mysterious singer Nora Luca in Romania. He follows a passionate and realistic journey that teaches himself the gypsy way of being. Quite different from the Kusturica approach, Tony Gatlif's music is more intimate of the true gypsy soul and enables us to feel and understand it. With this "musical anthropological" view a stunning portrait of this culture is made, with all it's roughness and spontaneity. As a viewer i grew as a person with this movie, some preconceptions were broken and a great admiration was born for the Romanian nomads.

I believe that "Gadjo Dilo" is a true approach to the gypsy way of being, a music that will inspire your future steps.

This film tells of one man's search for a singer amidst the chaotically beautiful gypsies of Roumania. It is a delicious, funny, crazy and richly erotic celebration of the wildness in the human spirit. Yet there is a shadowy undercurrent that surfaces at times in the film. This is honestly faced and thus the story avoids romanticising of a culture that the director evidently knows well (he was of gypsy birth himself). Despite the destructive power of this shadow what remains is a sense of the power of survival, joy, and a memory of music that is compelling beautiful.

There's several reasons for it. Rona Hartner's acting. Adrian "Copilu minune" Simionescu's music and, maybe most of all, Izidor Serban's intensity. As far as I know, he is a complete acting amateur. My wife is Romanian, and I play bass with one, maybe the only, gypsy orchestra in Sweden - with roma from Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria. I know their language a bit, but it is not the same dialect as in the movie, which I guess is "kaldarash", the guys in the band speaks "arlija". We do some of Adrian's songs, though... If you liked this movie I recommend the documentary "Iag Bari", which is a film about the moldovan gypsy brass band Fanfare Ciocârlia.

I was truly captivated by this seductive journey into the well-insulated lives of the gypsies. It takes a non-judgmental view and refrains from clichés. The film takes on a somewhat cinema variete approach and uses many non-professional actors for the supporting roles. This approach was successful and didn't distract from film's story. The film follows a young Frenchman on a quest to find a gypsy singer on an audio tape he has. I was able to catch it late one night on cable and have not been able to find it in any video store for rent. This movie really needs a DVD release so we can get it from Netflix. Someone should pick this one up for release.