Between Pain and Amen

Maybe my rating is due to the fact that I watched this movie at the inauguration, where the actors were present in Timisoara. It made me feel very impressed about what this movie had to show to the world, how bad the communism was in Romania. I wish I could understand more of the dialog, but the sound was bad in Romanian, so an additional subtitle might help the viewer to understand it.

This movie illustrates beautifully what the communists of Romania forced their population to endure. It was an emotional film that is worth every minute.

The story is real, the facts were real, the situation was a massive Romanian pogrom which was executed in the manner one hears coming from USSR/Russia, China or North Korea. The story was framed nicely, with a first dramatic line that holds well, in the development and character of the main character, and its relations with his alter ego living with his wife, the brother, the priest and other prison inmates. It comes with some other undertones - stories in background, most of them detracting from the seriousness of the presented situation, but I will not give away some of it.

Major cons of the movie are the acting of the main character which is very believable in the negative instances, but hardly believable in the upside scenes, some other poor acting, poor framing especially on the wide frames and the drone shots.

All in all it should received a better movie, a better cast, a clearer storyline, and it could have done more right to the situation.

Sadly, this is a film about a violent period in Romanian history when the elites were decimated and an entire country was taken over by a totalitarian pro-Soviet regime. It's a story about how a peaceful, in full development country, is violently stolen by brute force, its best people are tortured and killed, where the terror is spread over night, where human rights, real laws and humanity are no more existent. However, the movie is an artistic movie, not a documentary. It's reasonably violent, with violence more suggested than displayed which adds a lot to the balance and philosophy of the film. It's not a hard to watch movie - but it's hard to digest the outrageous history that - beware - you feel that it can repeat in any other country, anytime, in a very short amount of time; and also gives you the fear that your own self is not so far from bestiality, should the circumstances be different. The movie is a must see and is sublime in what it transmits. I have appreciated that, after developing the dark subject, the film is able to make you leave the cinema smiling.. crying, probably, but smiling. Iasi, Ateneu, 16 nov 2019.

It was the first time in my life when i heard people crying in a cinema. It is an emotional movie about communism and the suffering of those who kept their faith in the hardest times.

It is a true story and a movie made with no budget worth the while watching it. It became one of my top 10 all time favourite movies.

Congrats to everyone involved into this production. Exceptional!