SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain
Romanian films are certainly where it's at. The past 5 years have thrown up simple yet engaging works unmatched by the majority of the world. They have the ability to comment on Romanian society, with a sense of dark humour and without being too preachy. 12:08 East from Bucharest tells of a small town and whether or not it had anything to do with the 1989 revolution. The film sets up it's three protagonists and the world they live in. It manages to use the small town setting to it's advantage as we get a lot of back-story through the townsfolk recollections of each other. Over half the film is a TV broadcast, making it almost static, given humorous life by an incompetent cameraman and his less than adequate tripods. Luckily the dialogue, bickering and mystery is enough to keep the audience fully entertained. It's amazing how brilliantly scripted dialogue can be more enthralling than car chases, explosions and slapstick. The cinematography is also beautiful, with an exceptional silent climax as the streetlights come alive at dusk.
nobby burden (stevespeedy)
The summary translated the sub-title phrase as "I don't like your answering machine." Such was the problem with the translation and a fluent speaker in the room was a terrific help for me. What the actor had actually said was "I crap on your robot." Was It, Or Was It Not is the English title of this film, a mockumentary about the fall of communism in Romania. The story centers around a drunk who wastes his entire paycheck on booze, and every payday gets shaken down by his sponsors and returns home to his nagging wife. The film builds up slowly to a talk show which portrays the masses as being ineffective to stop anything the nomeklatura want. As a result of such unheroic conformity, nobody did anything to get rid of communism, even the execution of the brutal Ceaucescu was mere amusement shown on the boob tube.Such is the hard lesson of government overthrow, and Americans need to take notice.
doloresthomas
There is really a lot to this movie. Even thought there is almost no evident action, except for the long television broadcast of an obnoxious talk show - even some apparently loose ends or inconclusive stories - the fact is you can ponder on days on this beautiful work of art. Acting is superb in most cases, and images of dusk and dawn in the freezing Romanian winter - so gray, so hard - are pure poetry.The reference to dogma, among other keen jokes, talks about a clever story writer, and a cultured film maker. I'm really glad I got to see this movie as a part of the "Eurocine" European movie showcase that visits us these days (april 08) in Bogota and the rest of Colombia. We get a chance to see the best of Romania, a country apparently so far away, yet so close to our hearts.
writers_reign
This is a lovely, gentle satire that comes across even to Westerners who know next to nothing of Romanian politics and must be exquisitely rich to Romanians themselves. There's a lovely air of the quiet desperation that Thoreau claimed informed the lives of the majority. The setting is a small town in Romania where the owner of a small television station (he has a staff of one, reminiscent of those ubiquitous one-man radio stations in thirties America) is obliged to telephone invitees from his home to ascertain if he can rely on them to show up for his talk-show and then has to use his beat-up car to take them there. For his talk show this December 22nd he has opted to pose the question was there a revolution in THIS small town BEFORE 12:08 on this day in 1989. The fact this this is the SIXTEENTH anniversary of the downfall of Nicolae Ceaucescu and not a rounder number like 20th also smacks of desperation. To debate this with the Host/Station owner Virgil Jderescu (Teodor Corban) are History teacher and serious alcoholic Tiberiu Manescu (Ion Sapdaru) and a retired Santa Claus Emanoil Piscoci (Micea Andreescu) and for good measure the audience are encouraged to telephone with live on-air comments. On paper this is not exactly riveting stuff but writer director Corniliu Porumboiu proves adept at capturing the quirkiness and small-time score settling of, presumably, a small Romanian town. In some ways it is reminiscent of The Fireman's Ball with the same Eastern-European flavored humor and observation. I'll certainly buy the DVD once it becomes available.
AD
