La dernière croisade

The question in title is maybe a critical question when commenting on a historical movie. The director especially, sometimes wants to "tell" too much of his peoples history and the movie began too quickly. But I think this movie succeeded to mantain this frail equilibrium between historical information and artistic part.

Of course, comparing with Braveheart this movie isn't so realistic in images, has no such violence, but very real, battles, but it was filmed 27 years before and of course with some censorship involved. But it still is one of the great Romanian movies ever realised. The major critique, in my humble opinion, is a great king is a man too, and this aspect wasn't explored enough in this movie.

Maybe the myth was more important than the reality? But the performances were simply excellent and this critique can be minimised.

I like this movie because I´m a history buff and secondly my ancestors come from Transylvania. The characters in this movie are brilliant- Amza Pellea even matches the original Michael Petrascu. The only bad thing in the movie: the guns (Russian Mosin Nagant-Rifles) are not accurate. But!!! The are turned with new stocks and barrel bands into fine, ancient muskets. The marching scenes with thousands of Turcs and Romanians are excellent! Shame is, the movie is not very often seen on TV or at a blockbuster.

Amza Pellea is Mihai Viteazul! Very seldom that you see an actor transforming itself so completely to bring a strong historical character to life. I can only feel bad for the rest of the world for not being able to see this movie. Sergiu Nicolaescu, the movie director proves that he belongs with the best of the historical genre. Time will prove me right, somebody, someday, will bring this diamond in the rough to a full shine. It is disturbing to see the people in charge of promoting Romania's cultural image can't seem to know how to promote some of it's best assets.

It was a great idea that HBO Romania had to broadcast "Mihai Viteazul" on the Romania's National Day, that is the 1st of December. "Mihai Viteazul" successfully combines battle scenes and political intrigues and to show as realistic as possible the life and times of the great Romanian ruler. I'm not going to describe the film itself, it has to be seen by your own eyes to get the right image about a significant part of the Romanian film industry. Instead, I am going to speak a little about the director's visions about making this movie.

Right after HBO's playing the film on 1st December 2000, a Romanian broadcasting network invited director Sergiu Nicolaescu to make a comment on his masterpiece. Everybody must know this was the second motion picture made by Sergiu Nicolaescu for the silver screen. First, the film was meant to be a co-production with the USA, thus Nicolaescu managed to cast Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Wells and other great actors at Hollywood. However, the Ministry of Culture under President Nicolae Ceausescu did not admit an American involvement in a production based on the glorious history of the Romanian people. So, director Nicolaescu and writer Titus Popovici had to renounce to the American partnership and made this film on their own, financed by the Romanian government. A small dispute started between Nicolaescu and Popovici regarding the actor to play the main character, Mihai Viteazul. A number of 128 Romanian actors were tested for this role and the probes were sent in America, so that some American producers to choose which one is the appropriate actor for the character. The result was Sergiu Nicolaescu and that was exactly what Titus Popovici had in mind. So they started shooting with Nicolaescu playing Mihai Viteazul. But, after a while, Sergiu Nicolaescu was not pleased with the role, he actually wanted to play Selim-Pasa and went to the Ministry saying he's not going to direct that movie anymore, unless he is allowed to do it in his manner. He got the approval, except, of course, any American involvement in it. He returned on the director's chair, but with Amza Pellea playing the main character. I have to admit he was right, because Amza Pellea was outstanding and Nicolaescu's "Selim-Pasa" was a better part, I think.

All the battle scenes were filmed by only three cameras, without zoom effects (the Romanian film industry wasn't working with such equipments in the seventies), so all camera movements were created by physicals efforts.

Battle scenes were filmed with the Army's support, for which the director thanks during the main titles.

Historical facts are precise, that is Nicolaescu's guarantee. More than anything else, Sergiu Nicolaescu loves history, the Romanian history, and all important moments and dialogues in his historical movies are covered by documents from those periods.

Nicolaescu says he was surprised to notice a TV sequence in Steven Spielberg's "E.T." showing images from his film "Mihai Viteazul". That's why he asked, when he had the opportunity, Steven Spielberg why he enclosed a sequence from his movie and not from another director's. And Spielberg replied he admired Nicolaescu's work, especially the battle scenes, which also inspired him for some of his future films.

Best battle scenes until Lords of the Rings (in '70 there were no computers to add special effects so the battles look even more natural than today movies. The story is close to what really happened (historians from Romanian Academy were consultants for this movie). Good to see if you know a little about European/Ottoman history or if you like huge war scenes. As I know for this movie Sergiu Nicolaescu (the director) - present in the movie also as Selim Pasa character - had the entire support of the Romanian army - provided by the former Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. tens of thousands of people were used as utility actors and Nicolaescu also applied some new film directing techniques in this movie.