Der geköpfte Hahn

I do not know if it is a beautiful, great, good of bad film. it is only useful. for not ignore. for remember. for understand. and for define the past as puzzle of small groups. and, in this way, the history becomes more significant. short, the film is result of a happy meet between a special writer and a remarkable director. each giving the story of a painful episode from recent Romanian history. story of a family, about its friends and neighbors and about the clash of every day life with the politic. and the way to tell the story is more than inspired. because it is only a testimony. about choices, broken lives, fragility of certitudes, fall of a world. nothing more. and the observation about artistic or historical accuracy sins are covered by the invitation to reflection. about a time, few people and a small history who defines the great one.

The 800 years history of the German presence in Transylvania, its convulsed history during the 20th century and the almost total extinction of the community in the second half of the last century could be the subject and background for many fascinating stories and films. Unfortunately 'Der geköpfte Hahn' almost completely fails on all plans. The film is directed by Radu Gabrea, who as a young director in Communist Romania had an amazing first film in 1969 'Prea mic pentru un razboi atit de mare' (too young for such a great war) which precluded the theme of contrast between the innocence of childhood and the horrors of war. His career could not be continued at a sustained pace under the Communist regime, he made very few films, and this is the first that I am seeing for a long while. It is however a big disappointment. The history of the years 1940 to 1944 with the complex relations between the different communities coexisting in the city of Fagaras is described in a schematic manner, the characters are more stereotypes than real life people, they fail to move or to attract sympathy, and the story telling flows painfully with characters showing up from nowhere and disappearing without trace. I hope that some these amazing pieces in the history of Romania will have a better chance on screens in the future.

pathetic but authentic. strange but necessary. confession and kind of broken fairy-story. demonstration of use for each basic ingredient. cruel, nice and bitter. adaptation of a novel. testimony about a community life. and about its fall in Transylvania - land of many ethnics.sure, maybe it is not great. almost boring and didacticist, it has a small grain of pure beauty. the image of rooster, the performance of Dorel Vișan as Mailat, the fresh air of youth, the pieces from pure joy , the portrait of grandfathers Goldschmit. its sins - pedagogic message. so, it is not a letter but a lesson. a rock with prints of a fight without end. the effect is not remarkable. the story is forced and, for few moments, fake. but, it is a good exercise to remember the image of a lost period.

I was intrigued even from the start of the film by the appearance of the symbol itself (a beheaded rooster) that creates an atmosphere which is ominous and dark ,if Balkanic, within very light and warm images portraying the Saxon civilization from Transylvania at the beginning of WWII.

The freshness of the main cast, along with the wonderful lightness of the images and the dreamlike music, make this film of a complexity and depth that needs to be discovered and re-discovered.

I don't think it fits in any kind of trend, genre, wave, school or generation into which some people try to include it.

"The Beheaded Rooster" is simply a wonderful film.

The movie's qualities are undeniable - three in number:

• a very beautiful photography (which is natural, since Radu Gabrea was always a very visual and plastic director);

• an extremely competent reconstitution of the retro environment, thanks to the executive producer;

• the commendable attempt to bring to attention a dramatic, but little known, historic reality.

Unfortunately, the script is very unprofessionally written, with a linear construction and a faulty structure. Also the directing, very amateurish, fails to create one single memorable scene - all the dramatic situations being common, predictable and childish. The actors are very poorly directed, so they play theatrically, demonstratively and with grandiloquent mannerisms - which is understandable, since Radu Gabrea is one of the so-called "middle aged dinosaurs" of Romanian cinema: the '70s generation, today deeply afflicted by obsoleteness.

The saddest thing of all is that, although dealing with the traumatic events surrounding the tragedy of an ethnic minority in the dark years of World War 2, "The Beheaded Rooster" remains devoid of any emotion. Since the author is definitely a very sensitive and feeling artist, we are led to conclude that the failure is caused simply by his professional awkwardness - which is a great pity indeed.