Marfa si banii

Stuff and Dough (2001) is a low-budged road movie by one of the talented directors of so-called Romanian New Wave, and it is arguably the initiator of this wave. The freshness of the film comes both from the subject and from the style!

We are in contemporary Romania. A post-communist country where every citizen struggle to break trough with a business enterprise. Our main protagonist, mummy's boy Ovidiu accepts to deliver a package of medicines, which obviously is something different considering the money he received for delivery from his mafia-like 'boss'. On his way to Bucharest he is accompanied with a close friend Vali and his girlfriend Bety, and they are shocked when they are attacked by a group of men.

Besides the story, film successfully delivers living conditions of ordinary people in contemporary Romania, that is why, in some way, it resembles neo-realist approach. We are especially informed about the struggle of youth, their interests, targets and moral behaviors, how they accommodate to new liberal system, however post-communist type of liberalism.

On the other hand, style is more new wave; a fresh, unorthodox type of filmmaking. Hand-held camera, natural acting, coarse editing, full of jump cuts and elliptical cuts.

You must see this simple very good movie. It's like acting is from real life

In post-communist Romania young dropout-student Ovidiu's family is struggling to make ends meet by operating a small grocery store right out of their derelict tower block apartment. All he can hope for in this rather dismal small town is to buy someday a small kiosk for himself. The opportunity to considerably further his plan seems to arise when Ivanov, the local shady businessman, offers to pay a fabulous sum to get a parcel delivered to Bucharest, the Romanian Capital.

This attempt at a Romanian road movie goes to great lengths to depict the narrow world of its characters. Every detail of their departure, conversations etc. is painstakingly rendered, causing the film to lose momentum at times. However, the details of how they talk and interact with each other quite realistically reflect their attitude in life, their hopes or lack thereof, and their feelings towards each other. This has been a rare quality in Romanian films so far, where usually you have an improbable story and/or unnaturally behaving characters (few exceptions notwithstanding). I won't bother with the poor production (bad sync, faded colours, overpowering ambient noise) because that's simply not the point with this film. Among the undeniable qualities of Cristi Puiu's debut are the naturalistic depiction of everyday life and the hopelessness of it, the natural acting and language of the characters (which also makes any attempt at a faithful translation quite futile). Despite the lagging story the film accurately captures the everyday struggle and trouble of life in post-communist Eastern Europe. Definitely worth watching if you can adjust to the slow pace.

I seen on top 250 a lot of movies which are considered masterpieces, but they are just very good, if not stupid. This movie is very simple, but an incredible suspense-film, with perfect acting. The sound is bad because of very low budget, and also because the sound is produced at the same time with the image. In fact, the movie follow the set of rules confirmed by DOGMA 95. Often, people like to consider that great movies are complex, complicated, hard to understand, etc. I think this is a mistake. Marfa si banii is a great movie, and let's not exagerate with the subevaluation! 10/10

This film is a very good example that the idea, even though is not the only important thing for a movie, is the key point. With a very limited budget, a single basic camera with sound recorded live and a few characters played by very natural acting, young performers. It was like they never knew that they are filmed. Anyway this is a must see movie especially for Romanian speaking viewers. So, take some sun-flowers seeds - not popcorn - and enjoy.