Malmkrog

In high school years, I read the book of Soloviov. The impression was powerful and, after decades, its taste, the state are far to be altered.

The film selects its audience - this is the premise in its case. For dialogues, themes, for the three hours long, for the acting and for the atmosphere on set, for nuances and grace of silences, for perspectives and for relation between characters.

In fact, its virtue is be more than an exceptional film and, maybe, the masterpiece of Cristian Puiu filmography, but a precious seed for the viewer mind, return to youth lectures and to old fears and doubts.

In some measure, a film for teenagers. Indeed, old teenagers.

But just perfect for them.

Believe it or not, despite the rumors of this being a tedious and boring film, I found it engaging and interesting. During the last decade, Puiu's films explored in depth the source text of this film, "Three Dialogues" by the russian Belle Epoque theologist and philosopher Solov'ëv. This film feels like the coronation of this study, the ultimate version (following the modernisations that Puiu directed previously). The concept was to figure out if a philosophical dialogue can become a film. I believe that Puiu succeeded, mainly thanks to his personal directorial choices. While the philosophical themes (which range in a too wide spectrum to be listed, though mostly concerned with ethics and moral philosophy) are depicted interestingly by themselves, it's interesting to see what Puiu adds in his mise-en-scène: not only the location is changed, but interestingly the language: curiously, romanian is almost never heard, as the five aristocrats that debate speak in french, whereas the servants speak hungarian or german, the minoritary languages of transilvania, where the titular manor house is placed. Moreover, sound design and noises, the background movements of characters constitute a completely new parallel story, and contribute to create a sense of reality. Despite apparences this Puiu film is perfectly in league with his hyperralism estabilished in The Death of Mr Lazarescu or Aurora, as it is an aim to represent a real aristocratic setting from the late XIXth century. Let us not forget, for example, that french was the language that eastern european aristocracy chise to speak in situations such as the one depicted in the film. As for the way the action (or better, the inaction) is shown, there's frequent long takes, but despite expectations they are not tedious or "sleep-inducing": either the camera or the characters keep moving around, preserving dynamicity to the screen. While the original text is made of of three dialogues, Puiu chose to divide the film in six chapters, each dedicated to one of the five aristocrats involved in the conversations, plus one involving the butler, a silent servant that keeps appearing in the background of the film. This film easily became instantly one of my favourite romanian films and one of my favourite films from last year.

That's not entertainment. Which forbids it to be appreciated by any viewer who would want to be carried along by a plot, or a tension, or simply character acting. None of this in here. So let's forget about that audience.

This is a serious movie. So serious that it is totally devoid of any second degree, It's a movie proud of being.pedagogic. Therefore there is no humor, no provocation, nothing going over the top. So this is not for those who like their brains teased, or their knowledge challenged, or their cognitive bias toyed with. Let's forget about that audience.

This is too short a movie, running only at 200 minutes, it needed a few hours more, like 8 or 10. The movie endeavors to explore interlacing of society and philosophy at a key time in European history, a fascinating subject, unfortunately it is like a poorly introduced summary for students who have failed to do the proper reading before an exam. There is not enough background to provide learning for those new to the subject, and there is nothing new to be discovered for those already versed in it. So let's forget about this and that audience.

In summary, this a nicely shot, well written, intelligent and ambitious movie, which failed to choose which viewers to address. Too bad.

And it ain't Transformers 2 :D.

For me the best thing is how a novel written by a Russian philosopher that died in the year 1900 remains relevant today. Two world wars and millions of dead later it's like listening to 21. Century liberals and conservatives argue.

Hey, but we have Facebook and Arby's!

People who write about "wasting of time" simply don't have appropriate optics just yet. My advice - stop watching Transformers.