Seeker of the wind it is, above all, a film about the inevitability of death. Or, as Mihai Sofronea, the director and screenwriter of the play, said, “an interrogation of the fine line that separates life from death, existence from non-existence.” One of the lines of the main character, engineer Radu Franz, seemed to me to be iconic in this sense. The man is still young, which the past has already made him believe, doomed to misfortune. And to whom the doctor gives, precisely at the moment that should coincide with a new beginning in the profession, no more than three months of life.

And although three months have passed, Radu discovers that he can neither die nor live. It is in this observation that the fine line to which the director refers is hidden. And this happens even if the engineer’s escape from himself, from the severity of the sentence and the temporary replacement of his own loneliness by another, living somewhere in a Dobrudja village, next to his grandfather Pavel and Oana as her child, seems to confirm the statement. Fishermen: “And life is beautiful.” In Radu’s case, this beauty is ambiguous, and perhaps it is this ambiguity that defines what seems to have become Radu’s second escape.

I think the main credit of the film, written and directed by Mihai Sofronea, is to capture the ambiguity of the cause. with a entre deux, as the late George Banu often liked to say. Here we are dealing with a entre deux fateful This is facilitated by the security of the director’s version and editing (Corin Stavil), in whose well-thought-out grammar long close-ups alternate with sequences that are most likely deeply shortened, deliberately not brought to the end, the exceptional professionalism of cinematographer Tony Cartu. Who knows how and how much to insist on the austerity of the landscape, which is most often shot at dusk (the film has a lot of stone and a lot of dryness, dryness carefully balanced by sequences in which either stone is metamorphosed in places in huge walls, or a person mixed with water), and also on the figure of the main character.

The camera often insists on the face of engineer Franko. Of the fatigue and quasi-indifference from the moment the employment for what would later become a new job was perfected, of the haste to ask for the doctor’s initials, of the carefully orchestrated reaction/revolt at the fateful moment when he gives the Council the terrible news. It is worth noting that Toni Carciu is interested in the pantomime that accompanies the silence of the engineer, which was played perfectly by Dan Bordejanu, who is the best fit for this role, while his interlocutors (Adrian Peduraru, respectively Doru Ana) are rather reduced to the state of voice.

I think that these opening scenes must necessarily be related to the one in which Radu refuses Oani in the night (played with the necessary internalization, well counterpointed by Olympia Melinte’s outbursts (refusal justified by helplessness)), or the carousel. A few moments in which Radu, Oana, and baby Tudi (played wonderfully by baby Sebastien Pintilier) seem to be looking for a way out of their misery.

Misfortune is sublimated in the kindness with which Nea Pavlo seems to have reconciled himself. The role in which we see Adrian Titieni. But this reconciliation is also only half. Or only one in the eyes of the world. The director also finds means to make room for what is called the mouth of the village. Whatever this reconciliation is, it is still one of them entre deux which, as I said, contains the entire film. Appropriate in this sense is the sequence in which Nea Pavlo, good-natured until then, apparently reconciled with himself, fate and loneliness, shares with Radu the news he recently received from his son. Which consists of asking him to sell the house because he still earns a living abroad. No plans to return. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro