Au diable Staline, vive les mariés!

There will be others, I hope- since Malaele did such a good job with this first film of his.

The movie tells more than it just shows, even if the story is just a little bit loose in places. The essence permeates just fine and the strong symbolism it uses (like in the wedding silent feast or the silly mute comedy scenes), all the thick strokes still leave room for subtleties and interpretation.

It naturally flows from the savorous comedy bucolical scenes towards the dark drama at the end. It may very well be regarded as a critique of the Romanian capacity to adapt, our viral submissiveness that can make us just go with the wave, instead of reacting and fighting back. The amenability slowly mutates into fear and corruption. As a matter of fact, didn't we all leave with the circus? We let it control our lives and dictate the rules, we just accepted the yoke and the satire stopped doing the magic trick at some point.

Dead and buried, but the communism still wanders around. There are still uprooted people for which the absence is a state of being. People like the quiet mourners, who cannot meet today's society and it's new coutumes without the presence of the dis consideration depicted in the final scene.

Perfect cinema ,good laughs with deep profound feeling, the great of this movie is not long only one hour and a half masterpiece especially at the second half,watch it never miss it

Allegory for the Soviet conquest in Romania. A conquest of minds not only of soil.

8/10

This is maybe the best movie I have seen. It made me get an IMDb account to rate it 10 stars. I don't care about technical judgments about this movie. It's a Romanian emotional roller-coaster which pictures our recent history in a tragical and comical frame. It's one of the few movies I have ever watched at the cinema where at the end of which lots of people applauded. Romanians are recognizing themselves in the story and they find coherence in their identity and this makes the movie a masterpiece and a great service to the people of this country.

One more thing that I appreciate in this movie is a reparation done within the history of the subjective experience. People from the village were at best ignoring communists and poking fun of them if they were not hating them. Nobody was happy to give away their land and village men knew what communism can bring, since they saw it with their own eyes when they fought on the Eastern front.

Most people hated communism and they tried to live a normal life in silence, just like it happens in the movie. Humor was maybe the best survival resource.

I live in Romania and I know from personal experience and thorough study what Russians did bring under the name of communism. I don't try to convince anyone that the so called communism was criminal and implemented locally with the help of the weakest links (like in the movie), low educated people with low morals, since there is enough literature today for anyone that has any doubt. Of course, as somebody mentions here, Romanians too did their horrible crimes on the Eastern front, but this does not mean that what the people like the ones in the movie endured, did any kind of humane justice. The people that fought on the Eastern front are a good source, since they were regular soldiers, not vicious criminals and even if they were vicious criminals, they could anyway still have seen the "benefits" that "communism" has brought to Russia.

I understand why some people consider it propagandistic, but in my view this is a good artistical work upon the subjective experience and life of ordinary Romanians in 1953.

Tonight, 1st of May 2009, I have been invited to the Ratiu Foundation's Film Festival in London to see the film. Reviews from Romania came as a poor film, with a simple matter not well directed. I have to say that I've had the best cinematic experience in years. Malaele's film is truly a masterpiece, in directing actors as well as in his choice of cutting and music and everything that anyone would want to see. If some voices call it a copy of Kusturica's films I gotta say that is 10 times better, because on top of a colorful cast he also has acting, drama, tragedy, and comedy at the top of his sarcastic lungs. Malaele is a master in film that needs to be praised, and he needs nothing more of my words. All he needs now is his recognition that I as a Romanian director would give him with all my heart: I wish I could do a film like that!