Pozitia copilului

it is new demonstration about values and rules and game of influence from the East. a dark portrait of Romania, more complex than it seems be at the first sigh, impressive, powerful and touching. a mother protecting her son. without any price. an accident. and a poor family. and examples of admirable acting. from Romanian realities, nothing surprising. the family remains a fortress. many mothers , in the situation of Cornelia , are adepts of the same solutions. and this is the motif for discover this film. for the splendid job of Luminița Gheorghiu. for Bogdan Dumitrache as Barbu. for the levels of a crisis. and for the clash between two social circles. the basic virtue of the film - it has one of the most inspired ends.

I saw this film at the Berlinale 2013, as part of the official Competition. It won the Golder Bear, by the way, awarded as "Best film" by the International Jury. The average IMDb score of 8.7 from 145 users confirms this. The user reviews, however, are very extreme in both directions: 1 very positive, and 2 very negative. Mine is positive too, independently since my notes were written directly after the screening.

What struck me from beginning to end was that all facts and backgrounds of the respective characters were presented at the right moment, something that helps greatly in understanding how the narrative flows. Many other films leave us too much to outguess, even some from experienced directors and script writers who ought to know better.

The mother figure is set out from the start as someone who always gets what she wants, either by pulling strings via someone she knows socially or professionally, or by bribing people when the need arises. The openings scenes show her birthday party, where we see many important people, setting out very clearly the social circles she normally frequents. In the police station we see her using her "network" by contacting higher echelons to smooth the process. And she promises a favor to one of the policemen whose house is threatened to be torn down, since it is deemed too close to the beach as a result of changed housing rules, and as an expert (being an architect) she knows how to bend the rules in such cases.

Of course, the best example of how she tries to adapt an unwelcome truth in her favor, is when she attempts to bribe the chief witness. An interesting negotiation process follows, making very clear to us that she is used to obtain the desired outcome much faster than is happening in this case. Contrary to popular belief, money is not always sufficient. Her obvious contempt for people not belonging to her "class", proves to be a stumbling block here. Will she ever learn that one can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?? One of her obvious faults is exposed here.

But there is more along this line. A still more important shortcoming is her insensitivity for internal relationships within her family, firstly with her son who is a crucial factor in this story but not at all happy with her efforts to keep him out of jail, and secondly with her husband who admits to have been the lenient partner until now but is not prepared to go on like this. It takes her plenty of time to start grasping what is happening here, proverbially as if her world is crumbling down under her hands. It is obvious that she means well, but trying to bend things her way seems a mere automatism, without even bothering to ask if someone wants her meddling.

A mere side effect of seeing this film is that I forgot everything I've ever read about Eastern European countries, like inefficient police force, lazy bureaucrats, retarded technology, etcetera. This film shows that all of this is not true. The police acts very competently, at least in the scenes we see in this film, and we have no clue that this is not standard operating procedure. Same applies to the doctor who was needed for the alcohol test, and the forensic expert who assesses the damage of the car in order to draw conclusions about the accident. Moreover, technology (gadgets) wise it looks not different from what we have here in Western Europe. In other words, sightseeing (more or less) this former communist country was an extra surprise for me.

Though reluctantly, a considerable part of the family travels to the house of the killed child to meet the parents. Their prime purpose was to offer that they pay for the funeral, but effectively turning out very different from the short, obligatory and cold visit they originally had in mind. Judge for yourself when seeing this important scene whether there is eventually a spark of human contact between the two families.

All in all, I have only positive things to say about this film. I cannot agree with any of the two negative user reviews on IMDb posted before. What else can I add, other than applauding the decision of the Berlinale jury and the high average score of 8.7 given by 145 IMDb users.

Do you know these films where everything - acting, shooting, story telling, directing - works together to emerge into a clear message? This is such a film.

Reading bad reviews upfront, was afraid about getting bored from being too long, or dizzy from excessive use of hand held camera. Happy to report none of them apply. Instead, last frame was finding me quite surprised about how fast it was finished.

This film reminds me very much of "A separation" of Farhadi. They touched me in the same way, although the stories were different. That is because both stories are just recipients for emotions.

And in the end, this movie is full of emotions, human, universal, atemporal emotions. And that is what makes this film great.

a film about solitude. and truth moment. about love and error and need to escape from yourself. touching. profound. strange for the manner to present ordinary events in a direct and cold manner.in fact, a perfect puzzle. Luminița Gheorghiu does a splendid role who reflects image of many Romanian mothers. remarkable performance of Vlad Ivanov and Adrian Titieni impresses. basis the script, not a surprise from Răzvan Rădulescu. it is a cruel film for the science to reflect reality in large , clear slices. and for final taste. a film about duty. in its complete form. as shadow of fears and expectations and deep gestures who breaks the words. almost an experience. or only a ladder circle. must see it ! not for cast. not for prizes. not for quality of another Romanian/Eastern movie. but for its role of seed. seed of few impressions.

I happened to catch a screening of the film attended by the director and some of the actors, followed by a short Q&A. This sort of effort is part of a greater plan to bring appraised Romanian films closer to the Romanian audience, while also creating an association with the people responsible for their success, more often than not "against the odds".

What sets Netzer's film apart from some of the other recent Romanian works of cinema is its sardonic humor which works best when it's aimed at the characters and not at some of the pervasive practices of society. I've personally always felt that personal stories, meaning character stories, always came in second to some grand piece of social commentary, usually on the communist background of the country, in most of the acclaimed Romanian cinema of the 21st century. Not to say that such commentary lacks relevance, but there's just more to modern life than its dark red heritage.

Of course, "Pozitia Copilului" is deeply rooted in antics which one could call symptomatic of Romania and as a means of characterization, the backdrop is justifiable. Occasionally though, when certain aspects come across a bit too hard pressed, they do a disservice to the otherwise excellent balance of a difficult story. This does in no way undermine the beautifully detailed portrait of the film's main character, a highly controlling, bossy, arrogant, mean-spirited mother whose faults go quite a way to being redeemed by the passionate dedication with which she tries to protect her son, who had killed a child in a car accident. The ambivalence is so finely portrayed by Luminita Gheorghiu that both the moments of involuntary humor and the moments of pure drama work just as well.

It's ironic that Mrs. Gheorghiu also played in "Moartea Domnului Lazarescu", a film I found to be close at heart with "Pozitia Copilului", in that it relies heavily on a complex central character and its critique is subtle, yet scathing. I'd go so far as to say that these kind of films, while still dominated by a type of post-modernist bleakness, can lead a shift of focus to the greater importance of characters as individuals in Romanian movies, not only as symbol stand-ins.