Niki et Flo

I wasn't prepared to see this movie, I switched the TV on, zapped around, and stopped, because the few seconds I looked at without knowing what's all about, where and when it plays were enough to fascinate. A slow, very calm camera, a half absurd, but totally natural conversation with actors being as real as real life is. First after the movie ended I found out what its name was, so I came to see if I find any information here. Well, it wasn't much.

In my opinion this movie deserves a 9 from an international viewer, but a clean 10 from somebody who knows Romania. Fantastic director (Lucian Pintilie is well known on the European cinematic scene), fantastic - despite its simplicity and linearity - script, professionally developing plot, great actors - and I really mean great, on best international level - and a very fine, sensible psychological and sociological study.

I am deeply moved and still - after many hours - enthusiastic. The movie deserves standing ovations.

I watched the first quarter hour of this movie. And I was blown away. I even shouted an expletive. This is not a movie to watch alone. So I postponed it to see it with a small group of friends and popped in another disc.

The first 15 minutes were good. Probably the first 40 minutes were good. Good camera: fixed when it needed to be, and mobile otherwise. There frame wasn't crowded with useless objects. The characters were well drawn. The whole scene was made to point out the ridicule of the necromantic eastern death ritual in its mixture with modernism.

Than the story splits into branches. And the story falls on itself, like a flat tire, like a grounded weather balloon. The shock scene, featuring full frontal nudity is wonderful in itself. The actors do their job well, unlike other Romanian made movies where the actors have an unconvinced, stressed voice, apparently aware of their own nakedness. But the scene is from another movie, as it has no value for the story of Niki. Or Flo. Or the death. And than it strikes you: WHAT is the story? The title and the silly talk given by Lucian Pintilie at the end of the DVD say something about Niki. The french title says Niki and Flo. Yet you have a burial which takes the whole first part. And later on you have the son featured in the foreground. Than you have the daughter and her husband. Badly drawn, the never truly develop. But they take almost another third of the movie. They have the foreground, they generate the shock. At the end of the movie I knew that nothing has happened. In the style of script writer Cristi Puiu all you get is a family picture, a snapshot to fuel some nostalgics about the good–bad old times. Niki never changes in an hour an a half. Flo never changes. The wives are just misogynistic accessories. The children are there. But are they there? For those who lived the era, maybe the can identify the type, the cliché young military star with a father that is «somebody» in the army, the young computer operator looking for a job in the West, but the international viewer doesn't have that chance.

In the end is the same old story: a cardboard picture hanged in some romantic scene. The story of Niki, and not the dead son as I assumed, revealed by the dynamic Flo. A story that could have been done in 20 wonderful minutes without all this fluff and prop. But Pintilie never really went away from the school that generated Sergiu Nicolaescu. Film is a job, film is a way to make money and be somebody, just like the army is for Niki. In a way, the story of Niki is the story of Lucian Pintilie. But its more like a family album, as the events build up a chronology and not a story.

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This movie seems very modest at first but for those who have eyes to see behind the "nothing" in front they will find a masterpiece!

The story is very well written, but the director is even better!

Pintilie is the best Romanian director movie today.

Some may be scared by the truth they will find in this movie, like in all great art.

Many expect from movies just "entertainment".

They have no clue what art and truth are all about.

It is not just for Romanians, anybody can understand it.

The acting is superb!

I strongly recommend it to those who enjoy Quentin Tarantino.

I've read some comments about Niki et Flo - they said it was a masterpiece - so I decided to see it myself. In my opinion, there are other much better Romanian movies out there, coming from Lucian Pintilie, this one being far from what I've been expecting before watching it.

Rebengiuc is one of my favorites Romanian actors and he didn't disappointed me. The plot is subtle and the ending surprisingly at first, but at a second thought credible and logical. The homemade recordings poured through the entire movie by the authors make sense too and they are naturally embedded there. It's all about seeing and hearing the man next to you, about how expected are the unexpected happenings when you decide to pay attention to details. They put you into the real life masterfully.

The story starts with a ceremonial burial, a man who died in a stupid accident. But this man was the son of someone, the husband of someone, the brother of someone; after his death the others still exist, this event is not the end of everything. And the life passes, every character continue to exist and each one has his own way of carrying it on. Eventually, we find ourselves focused on his father, Niki, and his father's friend - Flo - and the relationship between them. The events seem to be minor, there are some annoyances between those two guys and I was tempted to consider them boring, small talks amongst friends, old and grumpy, but friends. The director misguided us as the life itself does it always when it comes to consider the guy next door. But eventually the events turn out unexpectedly, the movie is over and that's it! Now, after the shock, you'll start to reconsider everything, try to understand how and why. And every little thing in the movie suddenly has got another meaning, now you understand that sometimes, deeply inside, into somebody's soul, under certain circumstances, something terrible could evolve and rich a breakpoint, and now you start to ask yourself how could you have been so blind, how could it happened without you never noticing anything unusual. This is great, indeed, about this movie!

On the other hand, you have to attend some sort of patience training before seeing the movie, in order to be able to reach the ending. There are so many boring senselessly prolonged moments that could have been skipped for the best, that I'm wondering (and I'm asking): how about about a 30 minutes version of that release?

I use to take a second and a third look to certain movies, but this is NOT one of them, for sure! I know, they have tried to have you put, for the grand finale. Then again, there are some other much painless meanings to insert you into the stillness before the storm, I'm sure! It's a shame, in my opinion, to start working on such a great idea and to fail completely like this.

When i first saw this film,I laughed at the end.Then I started thinking,and thinking,and thinking...And what I realised was that i was in front of a masterpiece,a masterpiece about life,about the confrontation between the new and the old in Romania.The slow alienation of Niki is the slow madness we all sink in when we see our world turned upside down.This "brave new world" we all live in is nothing but a shallow image without any values or guidelines.Flo is the perfect representant of this pseudointelectual society and at the end,I think everybody who sees the film considers Niki's action justified.It seems one can only resolve his problems through violence nowadays.