Occident

My friends in Bucharest recommended this film: 'you must see it, it's better than 4-3-2'. 4-3-2 is the short for '4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days', the film that made director Cristian Mungiu known in the West and brought him a 'Palme d'Or' in Cannes exactly one year ago. I tend to agree, but I would add 'yes, better, but mostly for Romanian viewers'.

'Occident' deals with what has been in Communist Romania a national obsession and what became today a national and social phenomenon - the aspiration of the young generation to run away from a country where they cannot build a decent life and the mirage of the Occident. The story happens in the year 2000 and is told three times, from three different angles belonging each to a pair of characters, each time changing the perspective and revealing new angles of the story, changing its sense and even its ending. It is a smart story, in a style much more nervous than '4-3-2' which had a linear story telling, with long scenes giving the actors better opportunities for deeper performances.

And yet 'Occident' tells a lot of harsh truths about the Romanian society, about its corruption, emptiness, lack of education. All these will be much better understood by Romanian viewers however. It is also a different time, the characters in 'Occident' may be desperate to run away, but the difference is that they can do it, while '4-3-2' characters have no place to run. This may be one of the reasons that '4-3-2' impressed more viewers out of Romania. What happened in the last years of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu was criminal and may be shocking for less initiated viewers, but is by no means news for most of the Romanians, excepting the very young ones. Ceausescu still sells better even after his death.

A chain of stories. Impecable portrait of characters. Bitter humor. Ways of survive. And the choices defining different situations. A honest, realistic portrait of Romanian realities. Seductive for inspired performances, for the exploration of cliches and for the science to propose only events , determining the viewer to build his conclusion. Young people. Solutions . Their parents. And small circles of survive , fake succes or appearences as refuges.

This is worth seeing for being from Romania alone, but also it´s a good movie. It takes place in present day Romania and over a few days you follow Nae and Sorina around in everyday events. In a "Short cuts" kind of way you first meet a this couple, and people they encounter and interact with are the people we follow around in the next part. In all you get to see the same events from three different angles which makes an interesting whole. Like in everyday day life, there are both sad and happy occurrences, that shows us that life is not black nor white. It´s partly based on the true stories that the director collected while working as a journalist, and partly based on his own and his friends experiences, which makes this movie very believable.

I really liked this movie, I laughed most part of it, although it isn't a real comedy, but rather a drama. Yet, Ioan Gyuri Pascu makes a really funny role as the typical friend, neighbour and jack of all trades. All in all, the movie's charm is based on the way we get various pieces of information during each of its episodes, and we make up a story of our own, only to discover in the next episode of the film that it wasn't entirely true; most like in "Memento", or "Pulp Fiction", but in a stronger way, as we have here more different stories to follow, mix and clue together (similar to "E pericoloso sporgersi). Each episode shows us the same line of action, but with other details each time. The various pieces of information link one with the other only to show us that we are much too used to drawing conclusions of our own, without waiting to hear the narrator's. If you have the opportunity, go watch the movie. Although it is funnier for romanian people, the more likely to get the jokes and irony regarding everyday's life, it is entertaining as well for foreigners, due to the simple and amusing stories. "Occident" is riding the same wave as "Filantropica"; we hope to see some more good romanian cinema in the future as witty, ironic, sparkling and amusing as those ones.

I never expected a Romanian film to be so "occidental"!

Yes, I'm a young movie fan, but Romanian films (or at least those that I've seen) just have that characteristic awkwardness which make them look like second-class movies.

Well, Occident is different. It's radically different. It's different even from those American movies which had set the standards, but up to par with any of them.

Occident is strongly non-linear, and you wonder whether the familiar scene you're seeing is a similar one or a remembrance. Occident is fascinating, intriguing, even mind-boggling, and it doesn't make use of any Romania-specific jokes. So, if you're not Romanian, it's no problem. Occident is universal. And, quite a rare thing, Occident is worth seeing again. And again. And again.