Between Pain and Amen

There simply can not be enough movies about the horrors of communist prisons, especially the Pitesti Prison. People need to know the story, even if it isn't told in the best way possible. And Between Pain and Amen is not the best movie of them all.

It's full of cliches in terms of cinematography. With a few exceptions, the acting is bad, as is the dialogue. Sound mixing and montage could have been better.

Do some research on the Pitesti prison and experiment before watching it. From what I read, reality could have been way worse, but the movie does a very good job in describing the pain of the students and intellectuals that were imprisoned.

It is difficult to define this film. Basically, it is a testimony and one of films who you need to see to understand old truths defining the present. Fenomenul Pitesti deserves its movie. Not only as a sort of requisitorium against Communism but as remind of sacrifices, pain, cruelty and a sort of unique experiment of desumanitation of the XX century. Admirable acting , powerful message. A love story as axis and great ambition of Toma Enache to show the truth in its naked essence.

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.

I had mixt feelings about the movie. I did not expected to be such amazing and good quality. The topic, the flow of events, the research done to capture the essence is top quality. I recommend it to everyone. Maybe this is the first romanian movie I will watch again