[Spoilers] About the ending

[deleted]

It's all about feigned morality. Every gesture in the movie comes down to this.

Even, for example, the fact that Romeo wouldn't act on Sandra's son's speech impediment until he was kicked out of his own home and realized that he has to build another home for himself, and hers was the closest one he could hope for. "Everybody thinks only of their own needs but acts like they are thinking about other" I guess is the main message of this movie.

It's contemplative, not investigative (I guess Romanian cinema is like that... well, this type, at least). So if we can't tell what really happened from the facts, then I guess it's safe to assume that we weren't meant to. Not even whether Marius the boyfriend had really witnessed the event silently or not. We're probably just supposed to get the sense that everybody's just following their own interests, but acting like they're empathic and concerned about others (the discussion between Romeo and his daughter in the bathroom is the essential scene illustrating this, where he oscillates in his motivations, saying that he's doing everything for her, but also that she has to succeed just so that he can feel successful; she's basically his last hope).

If you keep this one underlying theme in mind, the whole movie is pretty obvious with it, pounding you over and over with it every chance it gets (dog getting run over and the characters not really caring, neighbor not calling the ambulance for the grandmother, instead just lighting a candle for her "last breaths"). It's not exactly subtle, just the same thing over and over and over.

Oh, and they're all unhappy. Jesus, everybody in this movie is miserable. Personally I truly hope this type of cinema gets exposed for the gimmick it is (the apparent 'dismal realism') and dies out eventually.


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I want you to meet a real mensch, Chuck Schwartz.

Wow thanks for the insight. I did notice how everybody only cared about themselves, most glaring I thought was when the mother found out about the grandmother almost dying and she barely spared half a thought on her.

Even the girl and her folks have weird interactions, it's like they have completely separate lives, yet they live together.

I too hope this kind of film dies out, it's the second Romanian film of this type I've seen recently (03 bypass) with the same atmosphere, dismal realism as you called it.

I enjoy the journey though, with all its negativity, but god damn does not having an actual ending piss me off.

I think it was a very nice movie, well done. I'm from Hungary, so I had some chance to experience this kind of athmosphere and what this movie is about (thank God it's not my reality though:)).

About who broke the windows: I think it was Matei, near the end of the film we see him throwing stone at someone in the playground. I got that as an obvious clue.

Hi :)

My impression the whole time was that the daughter and her friend Marius tried to boycott the father's plan of his daughter going to England. That's why they faked the assault (that explains why Marius was present and she was not raped), she twisted her wrist intentionally - all to avoid doing the final exams, because - apart from the "traumatic" experience - usually even with a plaster cast she would not have been allowed to enter the examination for fear of cheating (a teacher mentions that). She can only participate, because her father intervenes - but in the end it is all futile, because he is fighting against his daughter's wish to stay in Romanaia and with her boyfriend - although he does not realise that, since it is simply beyond his range of comprehension.

Nali*

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