My attitude to the rural world is quite approximate. And this fact also influenced the way I read and perceived the wonderful novels from Romanian literature that inspired this world. I unconditionally loved the works of Liviu Rebreanu, but Slavici, for example, I discovered for myself only in my student years. Thanks to the lectures of lecturer Doina Kurtikepeanu, who had the wit and intellectual integrity to draw our attention to the absolutely wonderful qualities of a monograph on the author Ghost thanks to Magdalena Popescu. The exegete, who relied on the acquisition of the new French criticism, demonstrated what is called the modernity of the author. His ability to show how his characters make their way to themselves, as well as the complexity of that self.

I remembered all this once TVR Cultural scheduled the broadcast of the film In forty days. The author of the script and director Andriy Hrushynskyi, released on the big screens in August 2021. So, after rebellion. This was also on the air a while back and I wrote about it at the right time. If Zavera, which takes place in the city, I thought it was not much or much, quite a different situation in the case of this deliberately slow film. Which, to see and appreciate properly, first of all, you need to be patient.

In forty days it is a film mainly about absence, about friendship, about the inevitability of death, about the preparations made when for one reason or another we feel it close.

The story of In forty days it happens in one village in Oltenia. A village that seemed far from wonderful to me, as I read about in one of the few chronicles devoted to the film. Therefore, everything in the village is presented as a mixture of modernity (people, including Emil, one of the two main characters of the film, shop at the supermarket, but even there they behave as if the speed of our day did it. not to impose smaller changes due to time) and tradition. Commemoration of the dead every forty days, obligatory smoking, early preparation of clothes for the funeral, a dress rehearsal, so that the candidate for the transition to eternity was sure that the memorial ceremony would go well. , the mouth of the village, which leads to the three, is guarded by the same Emil, who managed to break and move the nest of several storks. And, finally, the story with the Moroi. About a few years ago, Catalin Stefanescu wrote a play that he staged at the National Theater Raddu Stancha from Sibiu Alexandru Dabia. Unfortunately, he did this by falling into showmanship and exaggeration.

None of this in Andrii Hrushynskyi’s film. The main quality of which seems to me to be a sense of proportion.

A sense of proportion, which is especially noticeable in the relationship between the two main characters of the film. Two old friends. Two old men. Two older ones. Two men of the third age, as they now ask us to call all kinds of rules of justice. Which looks and does not look like an elder Les Célibataires Monterlant. Emil has just lost his wife. On Smarand. Whom he claims to have loved and whom, no doubt, he has offended many times. However, life goes on for Emil. With good and with bad. Not so with Titi. Who, after all, loved Smaranda more. He sat in the shadows, played the role of a faithful friend, counted Emil’s marital mistakes. Now he reprimands them from time to time. It’s just that the criticisms also appear in the film with the same tangible sense of proportion. Now Smaranda settled in the body of Titi. It means the call of death. The challenge is both lustful and sad. And Smaranda also settled between two friends. Whose behavior he determines and observes. This presence through absence reveals the nature of both. Kind. Past. Mutual mistakes. Watching two wonderful actors is a real pleasure. Mircea Andreescu from Brasov (by adoption) and Valer Dellaqueza, a convinced native of Craiova. Who knows the price of an elliptical game, silence. Sure, they play and talk, but they seem to be at their best when they have silence, looks, subtexts to play with. Real or just desired goals. How is Tita doing?

Good, very good, Gabriel Spahiu as the Bartender, just words for now. Just what Marian Negrescu needs in the role of Priest. Simona Urs has an appearance that stands out (she even has two) in the role of functioning in the city hall. Both Marian Negrescu and Simona Urs built their careers in the Theater Elvira Godianu from Tirgu Jiu. Simone Urs had an exceptional appearance in the show there amplexus or Last hugs the screenwriter and director there is Andriy Magheri. Unfortunately, this theater is now liquidated. Through political criminals and grassroots accomplices. And in the deafening silence of UNITER and its president. – read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro