2000-2009

The Way I Spent the End of the World (2006)

André Crous

The Way I Spent the End of the WorldRomania
3.5*

Director:
Cătălin Mitulescu
Screenwriters: 
Cătălin Mitulescu
Andreea Valean
Director of Photography:
Marius Panduru

Running time: 110 minutes

Original title: Cum mi-am petrecut sfârşitul lumii

By the end of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s decades-long reign, the ruthless Romanian dictator who had inspired fear in his people was a laughing stock, and while most people showed reverence to him in public, he was the object of ridicule in private.

Director Cătălin Mitulescu’s debut film, one of the gems of the Romanian New Wave, gives us a glimpse of life under the bereted leader who, in a hilarious opening scene, snatches a large block of cheese from a schoolboy because he hasn’t teethed yet. This boy, Lali (short for Lalalilu), should have been the focus of the film. If this were the case, this could easily have been one of the finest films of the Romanian New Wave. The boy is cute and curious with a natural acting ability and none of the contrivances of so many performances by child actors.

But we don’t get him in the lead. Instead, what we are left with is a very patchy storyline involving Eva, Lali’s older sister, who in her final year of high school has to choose between Alex, the slightly rebellious but well-intentioned son of a high-ranking Communist Party official, and Andrei, a boy whose ingenuity makes up for his looks. In one of the best scenes of the film, Alex knocks over a bust of Ceaușescu at his and Eva’s school; when they are both discovered at the scene of the crime, they are expelled and sent to a technical school outside the city.

There are interesting bits of narrative here and there – in particular, the plan hatched by Andrei to escape with Eva across the Danube, and their preparations for this adventure – but often the motivations are not well established, and when it transpires that Andrei and Eva are not on the same page when they find themselves halfway across the river in the middle of the night, the change of heart is left unexplained.

The film offers a nice sketch of the last year of Ceaușescan Romania, where regular power cuts and a general lack of rations are the order of the day, and the political situation is not the focus of the film. Fair enough. But Eva’s character arc is difficult to grasp, while her brother Lali’s adventurous spirit (he even has a plan to assassinate the country’s leader, but his plans fall apart when the revolution arrives) makes for arresting viewing but gets too little coverage. I would have liked a more coherent storyline for Eva, but given he is a first-time director, Mitulescu has staged his film very competently.

The Man Who Copied (2003)

André Crous

Brazil
3.5*

Director:
Jorge Furtado
Screenwriter:
Jorge Furtado
Director of Photography:
Alex Sernambi

Running time: 125 minutes

Original title: O homem que copiava

André is a photocopier operator, barely out of his teens, who falls in love with a girl living with her father in the housing block on the other side of the street. He is also a single child living with a single parent – his mother, who spends her evenings in front of the television before shuffling off to bed.

I liked André, and it’s not just because we share a name. He seems genuine, naïve and in love. From time to time, he realises that his prospects don’t seem all that good, but he glimpses bits and pieces of other lives – the lives of the people who come into the shop to have their work photocopied – and wants to work towards a life that provides him with greater opportunities, including the girl, Sylvia.

André makes some impressive illustrations, which we get to see in a handful of animated sequences. But while the film’s first half pulls us in with the main character’s awkward attempts at courtship, the second half loses nearly all credibility with an avalanche of coincidences and a few deaths that easily eliminate the complications resulting from these coincidences.

I wanted to like the film. In the role of André, actor Lázaro Ramos gives a steady performance as a young guy who wants to grow up and leave his impoverished surroundings behind. Although he is much better off than the characters of, say, City of God, he lives with his mother, and his job as a photocopier doesn’t exactly charm the ladies he meets at the nightclub. But the second half, while competently shot and executed, is lazy in its story development and leaves the audience feeling cheated.

Many viewers might find the final reel, in which a secret is revealed that goes a long way towards explaining Sylvia’s tolerance of André’s advances (especially in the early stages when he seems to be stalking her), a bit too romantic at such a late stage of the plot. But while the film is hurt by the incredible sequence of events in its second half, the last 10 minutes are more or less believable and, more importantly, they do represent a state of affairs we want to believe.