Hold Me I'm Falling

My social and cultural life really has boosted this week. On Monday I read a book called The Comfort of Strangers, by Ian McEwan. On Tuesday we got a last minute call from a friend who urgently needed three companions to watch The Phantom of the Opera in theater. Then on Wednesday we saw a Romanian-Swedish art movie with one of my high school friends and our partners. I'm planning to write about all three but it normally doesn't fit into my week, so first let's focus on the Romanian art movie.

The movie, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (original title: Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier) is set in a Romanian prison in the middle of nowhere. (I cannot recall ever seeing a movie by Romanian crew so forgive me my not knowing anything of the trends of Romanian film-making.) So as I said, the movie is set in a prison, which is nothing like those I know from American movies. No cells, no uniforms, not much suggesting a prison. A group of about 20-30 young guys in trainers working in the fields, sleeping in one huge dormitory. I don't say it's better, just different.
Our protagonist is Chiscan Silviu (George Piştereanu), an 18-year-old guy. He's quite tall and well-built, with huge brown eyes. We learn that he's been there for 4 years, not making any trouble. (In fact it's not really a prison but some kind of institution for juvenile delinquents; though in the film they call it a prison. I don't speak Romanian, so I cannot tell for sure.) When the story begins, Chiscan has only 15 days to go until he is set free. This is when his little brother, Marius visits to tell him their mother (Clara Vodă) has come back from Italy to take Marius with her.
We aren't told much about their story but we know that the mother left 8 years ago, the father is in hospital, and the two sons grew up practically on their own. Trapped between his brotherly duties and the will not to make trouble and get out on time, Chiscan does all in his power to prevent his mother taking his little brother with her.
Another crucial event in the plot is that a group of Sociology students, particularly good-looking girls arrive on a week-long training, during which they help the prisoners fill in questionnaires. Among them Ana (Ada Condeescu) attracts the attention of Silviu, who day after day keeps thinking of taking her on a date.
I don't know whether this part is realistic or not but personally I think it's one of the stupidist things imaginable to take a group of fresh and good-looking girls to a prison full of sexually overaroused male delinquents. Judging from the movie I think the whole research, including the questionnaire and the instructor himself was naive. They had to finish sentences like "Freedom is..." How would prisoners finish this sentence? Freedom is something I'll never know, or what?
I won't spoil the story, let's just say it was definitely worth watching and even an interesting experience, something out of the ordinary for me. I don't know the details, for example if the actors were professionals but the whole thing was extremely credible: Silviu, the mother, and Ana as well. It was also interesting visually, though I won't say experimental because I don't think they were the first to use hand-held camera. Very often, the camera followed Silviu as a real person, showing mainly the back of his neck. I also liked the rhythm of the film. Sometimes it was slow but it never got boring. For example, there is a scene when Ana and Silviu are sitting face to face, watching each other without saying a word, scanning each other's face like two animals. There were some blow-ups on the mother's face as well, all of these very tense and verbally inexpressible situations. I think it's a risky thing to include so many silent scenes but in this movie it was very cleverly done. And it created a contrast with the few scenes where Silviu let his anger out.
As I said, we weren't told too much, none of the soapy and didactic scenes you might get in an American movie. The only thing I regret is the few unrealistic elements of the plot: the sociological survey with the girls and the behaviour of the director of the prison towards the end. It wasn't a happy movie but it raised some important issues. One of my concerns is that by watching this film I behaved just like another outsider, poking my fingers around, asking stupid questions, and peacefully going home to my comfortable life.

(Btw. the title refers to a song from the Bollywood movie Monsoon Wedding, and it sounds like this. Sometimes I get sentimental, you know.)