I've read some comments about Niki et Flo - they said it was a masterpiece - so I decided to see it myself. In my opinion, there are other much better Romanian movies out there, coming from Lucian Pintilie, this one being far from what I've been expecting before watching it.
Rebengiuc is one of my favorites Romanian actors and he didn't disappointed me. The plot is subtle and the ending surprisingly at first, but at a second thought credible and logical. The homemade recordings poured through the entire movie by the authors make sense too and they are naturally embedded there. It's all about seeing and hearing the man next to you, about how expected are the unexpected happenings when you decide to pay attention to details. They put you into the real life masterfully.
The story starts with a ceremonial burial, a man who died in a stupid accident. But this man was the son of someone, the husband of someone, the brother of someone; after his death the others still exist, this event is not the end of everything. And the life passes, every character continue to exist and each one has his own way of carrying it on. Eventually, we find ourselves focused on his father, Niki, and his father's friend - Flo - and the relationship between them. The events seem to be minor, there are some annoyances between those two guys and I was tempted to consider them boring, small talks amongst friends, old and grumpy, but friends. The director misguided us as the life itself does it always when it comes to consider the guy next door. But eventually the events turn out unexpectedly, the movie is over and that's it! Now, after the shock, you'll start to reconsider everything, try to understand how and why. And every little thing in the movie suddenly has got another meaning, now you understand that sometimes, deeply inside, into somebody's soul, under certain circumstances, something terrible could evolve and rich a breakpoint, and now you start to ask yourself how could you have been so blind, how could it happened without you never noticing anything unusual. This is great, indeed, about this movie!
On the other hand, you have to attend some sort of patience training before seeing the movie, in order to be able to reach the ending. There are so many boring senselessly prolonged moments that could have been skipped for the best, that I'm wondering (and I'm asking): how about about a 30 minutes version of that release?
I use to take a second and a third look to certain movies, but this is NOT one of them, for sure! I know, they have tried to have you put, for the grand finale. Then again, there are some other much painless meanings to insert you into the stillness before the storm, I'm sure! It's a shame, in my opinion, to start working on such a great idea and to fail completely like this.
