Izola postcards (1/3) : TRANS-BALKAN EXPRESS

Published on: June 30th, 2011

the first of three columns written for Dnevni Otok Daily, the newspaper/magazine published by and during the film-festival of Izola, Slovenia (Kino Otok / Isola Cinema)

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We flew to Timişoara shortly after dawn; half an hour in the air cruising low from the edge of the Western Romanian Carpathians, and over the eastern flanks of the Pannonian Plain. This was an early stage in the journey that brought me from one ‘Balkan’ cinema-town to another: from the 10th Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj-Napoca (pop. 306,009) to the 7th Kino Otok – Isola Cinema in Izola (pop. 14,549).

Since the rise of the ‘Romanian New Wave’ in the second half of the last decade – most notably via Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005), Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008) and Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective (2009) – there has been sustained interest in cinema from this particular corner of eastern Europe, and every year journalists and programmers descend on Cluj eager to sniff out the next big thing. 2011′s most notable Romanian discovery? My pick would be Adalbert’s Dream, by Gabriel Achim.

Given its football pedigree stretching back to the very first editions, the 2012 Kino Otok might be a suitable home for Adalbert’s Dream, which unfolds the day after Steaua Bucharest won their first – and, to date, only – European Cup in Seville on May 7th, 1986. The climax of this against-the-odds defeat of Spanish giants Barcelona (topical!) during a nail-biting penalty shootout – Bucharest’s keeper Helmuth Duckadam notched an unprecedented quartet of consecutive spot-kick saves – plays over the opening credits, and provides a steady hum of euphoric background noise throughout most of the film’s 101 minutes.

It serves to distract the characters from the humdrum tedium of their factory jobs, and from the wider problems they face in what we now know to be the final years of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s oppressive rule as head of the Romanian Communist Party (PRC). Several PRC dignitaries are due to visit as part of celebrations to mark the party’s 75 anniversary – a (forcibly) festive day for all, and an occasion annually marked by the screening of two short 8mm films made by members of the factory’s Health & Safety department. These shorts are directed by entrepreneurial fortysomething Iulica (Gabriel Spahiu), a happy-go-lucky sort whose habit of sailing close to the wind is exemplified by the fact that he’s carrying on an extra-marital affair, and by his (similarly “illicit”) possession of that icon of 1980s domestic capitalist luxury, the Video Cassette Recorder.

Iulica’s adventures and misadventures over the course of the hectic day are the focus of Adalbert’s Dream, its script co-written by feature-debutant Achim – a 35-year-old previously best known for 2008′s so-so short about the pitfalls of modern Romanian moviemaking, Bric-Brac - and Cosmin Manolache, the latter a much-praised 38-year-old short-story writer whose tale The Three Hundred Cups was included by Aleksander Hemon in the collection Best European Fiction of 2010. The pair have crafted a clever, economic little fable, darkly comic but with a serious undercurrent, one based firmly around their vividly-sketched characters. It pays close attention to their dialogue, gestures, interactions and milieux, with the factory background evoked in particularly effective, pungently grimy detail.

A 31-year-old Romanian now based in Copenhagen, cinematographer George Chiper-Lillemark was tasked with realising Achim’s concept of shooting the picture using old-school VHS technology – all the better to capture the dingy tones of late-80s Romania. As detailed on his website (www.georgechiper.blogspot.com) this involved tracking down a 20-year-old JVC and adapting it, after various trial-and-error mishaps, with special Zeiss lenses. The results prove well worth the hassle, providing a highly distinctive texture and making the very most of the limited (reportedly €600,000) budget. Adalbert’s Dream, then, is well worth keeping an eye out for over the coming months – perhaps at Ljubljana’s LIFFe in November. Just remember where you heard about it first!

Neil Young
Dnevni Otok Daily, 8th June, 2011 (… second column is here)