Veni, Vidi, Fugi: I came, I saw, I fled

The seventh art or muse Clio herself came closer to the viewer to untangle both the strings of some elusive ancient stories that have still kept away the reasons why Ovid was forced to leave Rome for some cold and remote place on The Black Sea Coast and also a young romance sprung mostly from our 'K' – a high school teenager who seems to dance on the rhymes of Ars Amandi. Two separate realities emerge and are very similar for us though initially felt different for 'K' – Rome in Augustus' time could not resemble Romania in the late Communism era yet both were engaged in oppressive actions for controlling their people. Thus, beautifully combined, history and art portray a short span in the life of an adolescent who albeit poor at Latin finds help from an imaginary Ovid who tutors him to unravel the mystery of why the poet had been removed from Rome and succeeds in doing the homework being later unexpectedly commended by the teacher. This short film is humorously speckled with a three-bloke gang, an allusion to a famous concubine in the city of Constanta from the 80's and the petty slang of those days and all these are not far etching from what we remember. Again, the poet akin to the Roman gentry finds the society in this contemporary city of Tomis a clear match for the ruthlessness of the Ancient Empire. Ovid must have desperately needed a way back to Rome but found none while 'K' managed to flee away from communism and won his freedom.

I saw the film 10 times. It was like a time machine for me. Every time getting me back in time. Making me to remember school years with similar problems as K's, living in that communist hard period with no real aspirations and without any real future. Very vivid sensation of been there lived that. Characters are very well defined, and the melange of fantasy and history that inserts into the present action is very catchy an tastefully. Even the film is not a comedy, humor is the word. You can find the satiric mood of the film maker on every step. Bottom line I liked the film, it made me meditate over some things. Worth to see.

From its Incipit, which brings the audience to Constanta, on Romania's Black Sea Coast in the year 1989, the medium-length film "Veni, Vidi, Fugi" seems to announce some sort of revisiting to director's native lands, possibly converted into an evocative "Axis Mundi". The unusual note hits us right away though, when we catch sight of the Roman Poet Ovid, exiled to Tomis 2000 years ago in 8 AD, immersed in reading a letter, while the protagonist's voice - a Constanta 12th grade student who is in huge trouble in his Latin class, ''flows" over the fluid travelling shot capturing Ovid's desolation (cultural touch which has brought to the film a special award in Montecatini Festival). As two millenia are compressed instantly through this juxtaposition, we are then thrown through Viorel Sergovici Jr's dynamic camera style into the midst of a romantic innuendo initiated by the protagonist trying to win the heart of a classmate via nonchalant maneuvers, verging on an almost bully-like seducing style. We discover the protagonist is played by "perpetual teenager" of Romanian Cinema, Paul Diaconescu, now almost 30 and yet almost never used at the level of high potentiality demonstrated in the Acting University shows and even coming under a negative spotlight in a production such as "Mamaia" (2013, Jesus del Cerro). In "Veni, Vidi, Fugi" (2016) the young actor though forges a convincing partnership with Constantin Florescu, maybe also because the former outwits the long pattern of supporting roles in which he ''got trapped", ''becoming" an icon - Publius Ovidius Naso, "captured" during the exile and decay stage and yet vital enough to remain a Cicerone and mentor to the young protagonist from a remote province of Rome (Tomis, on the Black Sea Coast). The partnership between protagonist and Ovid is a construct based on a parallelism which could appear somewhat artificial in the absence of any background of "bitter comedy" and also if missing one crucial plot element - both characters - Ovid and the protagonist - tie their destiny to the nieces of the major authority figures in their worlds - both brutal dictatorships - (Ovid, to Iulia, the niece of Emperor Octavian Augustus; while the protagonist is involved in an intense courtship of Iulia, his attractive classmate, who is also the niece of his morose and ominous high school's Principal.) By extracting supremely privileged "insider information" on Ovid's tribulations - from Ovid himself, the protagonist succeeds in winning over the Latin teacher, a sexy and sarcastic Maia Morgenstern (winner of two film festival awards for "Best Supporting Role" for" Veni, Vidi, Fugi" in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Sydney, Australia ). Escaping from the Latin class ordeal, the protagonist's romantic interest shifts - and this is a good plot point of the script that won already this year's "Best Script in International Category" at the Film Festival in Jaipur, India, from classmate Iulia, played with aplomb by less known Malina Tomoiaga, to the "Femme Fatale" played by Raluca Aprodu (mistress of a local Party big shoot and informer for the Securitate - Ceausescu's secret services), who seems to be under a favorable star in last years, as she has achieved definitive recognition in Bogdan Mirica's 2016 "Dogs". The individual's clash with the Establishment seemed to be also at the very center of an older short film by Robert Eugen Popa,( "Regression" - 2011 - winner of "Best Director in Short Film" Award at Corinth International Film Festival 2012 ), built as "Veni, Vidi, Fugi" on a script written together with former UCLA peer and buddy, Timothy M. Brice. From that older film - actors Dorian Boguta (plausible and versatile in the lead role, with the exception of the final scene where there is a credibility slip from his otherwise "chameleonic" range ) Geo Dobre and Claudiu Trandafir are brought back, last two as a pair of secret agents to enhance the directorial comic vision, that is also well supported by Ovidiu Vacaru's fast pace editing. Intense "chromatics" is the portrayal of the nefariously funny criminal trio of the Pig Bros, out of which the Geavit character offers to Elias Ferkin a very earthy role to think his teeth into, at least after the preponderantly mystical characters played in "Kasimir" ( 2013, Directed by Dorian Boguta) and "4.15 The End of the World" (2016 Directed by Catalin Rotaru & Gabi Virginia Sarga). There is no doubt that the complex target of an elaborate historical recreation of the two eras represented in the film would scream for very different financial resources than the ones available to this production. That being the case, the authorial voice falls on the paraphrase (starting with Caesar's title twist, which rather reminds us of Napoleon's witticism "La seule victoire en amour c'est la fuite") coupled with a obvious eloquence of some characters and a certain intertextuality, meant probably to soften the tragedy of the exile theme: the 12th grade student seems to be opting for radical escape, while Ovid seems to be "going native", in the most accentuated Balkan way, on this remote outpost of the Black Sea Coast. Intellectually skeptical, but pragmatic and very ambitious, the Screenwriter-Director Robert Eugen Popa has ample material and a feature breath for "Veni, Vidi, Fugi" - and other features to come, whether in Romania, the United States or wherever abroad, because, as Ovid's life taught us, the artist doesn't meet always with his homeland imperatives.

The seventh art or muse Clio herself came closer to the viewer to untangle both the strings of some elusive ancient stories that have still kept away the reasons why Ovid was forced to leave Rome for some cold and remote place on The Black Sea Coast and also a young romance sprung mostly from our 'K' – a high school teenager who seems to dance on the rhymes of Ars Amandi. Two separate realities emerge and are very similar for us though initially felt different for 'K' – Rome in Augustus' time could not resemble Romania in the late Communism era yet both were engaged in oppressive actions for controlling their people. Thus, beautifully combined, history and art portray a short span in the life of an adolescent who albeit poor at Latin finds help from an imaginary Ovid who tutors him to unravel the mystery of why the poet had been removed from Rome and succeeds in doing the homework being later unexpectedly commended by the teacher. This short film is humorously speckled with a three- bloke gang, an allusion to a famous concubine in the city of Constanta from the 80's and the petty slang of those days and all these are not far etching from what we remember. Again, the poet akin to the Roman gentry finds the society in this contemporary city of Tomis a clear match for the ruthlessness of the Ancient Empire. Ovid must have desperately needed a way back to Rome but found none while 'K' managed to flee away from communism and won his freedom.

I agree strongly with the above reviews. This is a phenomenal film touching on the echoes of history, art vs. state, imagination vs. dictatorship; all within 29 minutes.

The story opens with Ovid exiled under what is now called Constanta, Romania; no longer an oppressive Roman state, but operating under the communist regime of Ceausescu in the 1980s. We learn Ovid was exiled by the Augustus Caesar and lived here, wretched and unknown, pining, until his death, to return to Rome, where he had once been its most famous poet. His mentoring of the young student has all the sweet irony of the iconic historical figure meeting the dismayed protagonist, all with a nostalgic view of what must have been a very difficult period to live through. One is reminded of Midnight in Paris, Amacord and Mean Streets all rolled up into a Balkan surprise.

We are immersed in the character's dilemma: history echoing, exile, entrapment in a Byzantine system ruled by Ceausescu's dreaded secret police, while there is the incredibly obsessive mirage of the West and the need for ingenuity in order to succeed in outwitting the brutal Romanian Government.

I would like to point out the wonderful characters that are generated and acted by first-class portrayals. The young protagonist K is played superbly displaying all the angst and drama of a young man trying to negotiate his way to manhood. Ovid, is utterly believable - played straight with no irony. One feels that the classic poet has indeed been conjured out of the past. I would love to hang with the Pig Brothers just for enough time to gain a lifetime of hilarious anecdotes. Lastly, the young women are played with true coquettish and dramatic intentions by wonderful actresses.

My only complaint is I wish it was longer. There is so much potential here. There is a subtle use of camera framing and movement that fulfills all the dramatic goals while never seeming contrived or superficial.

Bravo, Well done!!!