Die Reise mit Vater

Very weak drama on communism in Romania, the difference from this endless Romanian cinema leitmotif being it is a road movie crossing international borders. Sad attempts at humour, sketchy characters and nothing memorable happening in this movie. Not recommended.

In 1968, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubcek, ushered in a program of reforms that he called "Socialism with a human face." The new "Action Programme" allowed greater freedom of speech, press, and travel, limited the power of the secret police, and raised the possibility of democratic elections. The achievement of these goals, however, was thwarted by the invasion of half a million Soviet troops and tanks and an occupation that lasted eight months. It was a revolution that never happened. Based on her family history in Romania and Germany, director Anca Miruna Lazarescu's ("The Secret of Deva") That Trip We Took with Dad puts us right into the center of the dramatic events unfolding in Europe and does so with suspense and engaging humor.

Caught in the middle are Mihai Reinholtz (Alexandru Margineanu, "California Dreamin") and his brother Emil portrayed by Razvan Enciu in a breakout performance. The family is traveling from Arad, Romania to bring their sick father William (Ovidiu Schumacher, "The Beheaded Rooster") to Dresden for an operation that is unavailable in Romania. The film begins in Arad where Mihai is a doctor who seems to have accepted life in Ceausescu's Romania and acts as a reluctant informant for the Securitate, Romania's repressive secret police. When his young brother Emil, an anti-Stalinist activist, becomes involved in an anti-Communist protest, however, Mihai provides a name to the authorities, but spares Emil whom he vigorously calls out and warns of the danger into which he is putting his family.

Lazarescu depicts the family's journey to the GDR in their yellow Skoda with mordant wit. Emil plays the guitar and sings anti-Soviet songs, William yells at him never to sing the song again and berates Mihai for trying to prolong his life which he'd rather not. In Hungary Emil is surprised and happy that he is able to purchase Beatles and Rolling Stones albums, but sadly they are confiscated by East German border guards, though Emil tries to convince them that "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a hymn to collective agricultural production cooperatives. The humor does not last very long, however. Traveling in Germany, they meet up with Soviet tanks on the road heading towards Prague and are detained by the GDR authorities.

Forced to stay in an East German holding camp where Russian, Czech, German, and Hungarian detainees are at each other's throats, Mihai tries to keep order until the groups are separated into different rooms. The Romanian detainees are thrilled to watch on TV as President Nicolai Ceausescu denounces the Soviet invasion, though they are unaware that his government would later become even more authoritarian and repressive than other Communist regimes. When Mihai meets Ulrike (Susanne Bormann, "Barbara") a German countess who pretends to be pregnant, Mihai is offered the opportunity to come to Munich with her where his father can get the operation he needs.

With the Czech-German border closed, the only safe way to return is through West Germany, Austria, and Yugoslavia, bypassing the Russian-controlled countries and with the help of the Romanian Ambassador and some smuggled cognac, Mihai leaves with Ulrike. What Mihai finds in Munich is not what he expected, however. He moves into a commune with Ulrike that is filled with students vigorously vocalizing positions favorable to both East and West, some supporting Marx and Lenin and criticizing the West for the Vietnam War and the disparity between rich and poor, others blasting the Russians for their oppression of freedom in Prague. An idealist, Ulrike envisions a world where people can live together in peace and harmony, but her vision seems far away.

When Emil and his dad finally show up, ideology takes a back seat to practical realities as William's condition takes a turn for the worse and Mihai and Emil are forced to weigh contradictory options to live in freedom or return home in spite of the obstacles. That Trip We Took with Dad is a thought-provoking film that brings us back to the days when freedom and human rights was still a dream for thousands of people living under Communism in Eastern Europe. It also brings into focus the fact that the fight against repression did not end with the dismantling of the Soviet Union. As blacklisted author Millard Lampell's Cantata "The Lonesome Train" tells us, "Freedom's a thing that has no ending. It needs to be cared for; it needs defending. A great long job for many hands, carrying freedom 'cross the land."

I loved the film. The historical context is not precise, but does not have to be, its just a tool to illustrate that despite the social situation people may carry the problems within themselves. The same political system may raise different type of people... Or like Emil says: " They have everything, but do not enjoy it, I want to be at home to enjoy all these things..." Great acting, great music, beautiful photography, the movie justifies and praises the life as it is with its comic and sad sides.

I'm a romanian born during the communist era, this film's action is placed around the years I came to the world. So I've watched this film primarily for understanding my parent's life. Well, not only I know a bit more, but I've discovered a touching and very deeply sensitive author and film director. There are moments in the film I couldn't help it and had tears in the eyes. Then other moments where deep human relationships gave me hope. And she's already understanding the problems idealists can create. She has it all, as far as I can say.

'That Trip We Took with Dad' (the Romanian title is 'La drum cu tata', the German title is 'Die Reise mit Vater') is Anca Miruna Lazarescu's 2016 debut feature film. The director was born in Romania but has lived in Germany since childhood and was formatted in German film schools. 'That Trip We Took with Dad' is a film with a strong personal touch, inspired by the story of the life of the director's father and her family, possibly a kind of farewell to a past and complicated stage of her own biography. It is also an opportunity to recall a key moment in European history (the invasion by the USSR and some of its allies of Czechoslovakia in 1968) and the way it was lived in Romania and by the Romanians. I lived in that era and I was close to the age of the youngest of the film's heroes.'That Trip We Took with Dad' seemed interesting and authentic to me, almost a missed opportunity to be a great film.

The perspective is probably unique for most viewers, both because of geographical and cultural differences, but also due to the passing of half a century and the changes that have taken place during this time. In one of the key lines of the film, Ulrike (Susanne Bormann), a young German woman from the FRG tells Mihai, her Romanian friend (Alexandru Margineanu) 'You are very different'. The mentality gap caused by the different historical experiences of the same young generation in the two parts of Europe in 1968 is one of the central themes of the film. Mihai and Emil Reinholz, who had gone on a car trip to the German 'Democratic' Republic to find a surgeon to operate on their father, arrive, in the whirlwind of events after the invasion of August 22, 1968, in the 'free world' , ie in the Federal Republic. Young Romanians admire the reformist movement of the 'Prague Spring' and oppose the Soviet intervention and the re-Stalinization of Eastern Europe (including Romania). The young Germans they meet belong to the confused generation of 1968, admire socialism and ignore the realities of its application on the other side the Iron Curtain. They are united by their idealism, their aspiration for freedom and the music of the Beatles and the Stones, they are separated by their historical and life experiences and especially by their ignorance of the realities 'on the other side'. The Reinholz family is not without its contradictions either. The elder boy, a doctor, is obliged by the Romanian Securitate to be an informant in order to receive the right to travel and save his father. The West does not receive him with flowers either, and life there seems to demand similar compromises. The father is a former communist sympathiser, disappointed by the realities. Returning to Romania at that time, that path that was actually chosen by many who were in this situation, meant resuming the struggle for survival and a wait of another over 20 years until gaining freedom, along with all Romanians, at the fall of communism in 1989.

The story is interesting and the construction of the script is clever. The approach could be criticised for Manichaeism, the characters are drawn and judged from the start, but let's not forget that this is a personal perspective. For those who lived in communist Romania and for their descendants who talked to their parents and who know history well, it is clear who were the 'good guys' and who were the 'bad guys'. Some of the situations described in the film give the opportunity for memorable scenes (the children's games in the courtyard of the building in Arad, the Soviet tanks that almost crush the heroes, the conflicts in the East German detention center, the boys' song and the father's dance at the meeting with the German 'leftists'). I think that if the film had insisted on these directions, emphasising even the satire and the grotesque, the result could have been even more remarkable. Even so, I can only admire the performances of the team of actors with Alexandru Margineanu and Razvan Enciu in the role of the two young Romanians of German origin, whom I recognised as two fellows of my generation. Ovidiu Schumacher is also very good in the role of the father, and Susanne Bormann credibly plays the role of Ulrike, the young German of noble origin and with revolutionary sympathies. 'That Trip We Took with Dad' is an interesting film that manages to provide a personal perspective on the events of 1968 and to be a true document for those who did not live that period. For Anca Miruna Lazarescu this may be the start of a great career as film director.