Un'estate indimenticabile

I am a Romanian and I never heard of this movie before. I was amazed to see Kristin Scott Thomas speaking Romanian so well and staring in the movie of a Romanian director like Pintilie. The subject was dramatic, but full of heart. It was about human goodness, which from a contemporary perspective is very obvious, but I suppose that at the beginning of the 20th century was seen rather differently. All in all, the movie was good; it kept me hooked for its full length. And bravo for Kristin Scott Thomas, Claudiu Bleont, and Lucian Pintilie. I'm really happy to see Romanian post-communist movies without a script about various transition-related issues.

The director manages to pack a lot of local color and drama into a spare 82 minutes. The costumes and scenery are gorgeous, and the acting is superb. And the story itself is both poignant and uplifting. A romantic drama in the Ayn Rand tradition.

Ete packs a great deal of moral and ethical examination into its 82 minutes. The language bounces around between French, English, Romanian and some Bulgarian and I think this adds to its charm. Beautifully acted by both Kristin Scott Thomas and Claudiu Bleont. Lucian Pintilie is a brilliant director and screenwriter -- he deserves more exposure than he gets. Very strong film!

First, a honest picture of real , profound bitter realities . Lucian Pintilie genius. Kristin Scott Thomas performance. And the feeling about the land, people, cruelty and wrong decisions, profound dilemas and courage. A film about silence and fake refuges. And about the pride of a man, the love for her husband of a woman, the victims of politic illusions and the fall of a world. All presented in superb manner.

The movie depicts the atrocities committed against Bulgarian peasants by the Romanian authorities after reconquering Southern Dobrogea at the end of World War I. Petre Dimitriu, a young army captain heads the local garrison and attempts in vain to prevent the killings. It is difficult to understand why Lucian Pintilie chose an obscure short-story, published in the early 1950s as subject for his film. The author, Petre Dimitriu, was at that time a young writer aspiring for recognition by the communist regime. The autobiographical story tries at the same time to vilify the former regime and to prove that the authors father had dissociated himself from that regime. The story was intended to reinforce the author's credentials and to help him become an aclaimed communist writer before his defection to the West. Lucian Pintilie's direction was not able to annihilate the political background of the story. Therefore, despite its qualities, the film rings like an anachronic revival of the socialist realism of the 1950s.