I saw it again the other day thanks to TVR Cultural, metronome, the feature-length debut of director Alexander Belts. The film, which opened on the big screens in Romania after winning the Best Director award at Cannes Some respect.

I saw the film earlier in the fall, and in what I wrote then, I expressed my disappointment that in the metronome about the famous show p Radio Europe. Transferred to shortwave thanks to the brilliant intuition of the station’s most popular director, the legendary Noel Bernard, after its broadcast became unavailable on Radio Bucharest.

Increasingly faced with the severity of censorship, restriction of freedom, editorial independence, the producer of the famous program Cornel Kyriac used a tourist visa in Czechoslovakia and never returned to Romania, and then ended up in a refugee camp in Traiskirchen, waiting for political asylum, from where he was brought by Noel Bernard to Munich Radio. The young people in the film, students of an elite high school in Bucharest, gather in what, in 1972, the year in which the action takes place, was called what do you have. Listen to music, dance for a long time to the wonderful music of Mircea Florian. One day he listens to the Cornel Kyriac show, a special edition dedicated to the memory of Jim Morrison. I am writing to a producer in Munich asking him to transmit the music that the radio stations in Bucharest have no longer allowed to broadcast.

The youth in question did not suspect this since 1971, after the devastating events Theses since July, Romanian citizens have been banned from listening to and sending messages to foreign radio stations deemed hostile. offices of capitalist propagandawhere they worked coups willing to sell the country for a handful of dollars, it became a mortal sin. The young people in Alexander Beltz’s film did not even know that one of them, Sorin, had become a security informant as a result of blackmail. That he will come what do you have with the precise mission of informing Government agencies about everything that happened there. Sorin knew he had to do his duty, but he was also sure he wouldn’t meet Ana there. His girlfriend, with whom he will break up anyway, because soon he and his family will leave permanently for Germany.

In Alexandre Beltz’s film, you can hear the musical signal of the show, the voice of Ioana Crisan (Trudi Dumitrescu), who announced the beginning of the program from 1969 until March 1975, when Kyriac lost his life in circumstances that have not been fully clarified to this day. , and after metronome it was entrusted to Radu Theodore (Radu Maltopol). You can also hear the voice of the creator of the show. And that’s all. The film tells very little about Cornelius Cyriac, hence my disappointment expressed in the timeline published in October 2022. That is, exactly 50 years after the end of the events described in the film.

So I watched the movie again. This time with conditions the viewer be warned. Who no longer had reason to be delusional. Who was not waiting to see the film about Cyriac, Meron his and Radio Free Europe. That is why I appreciated the quality of the reconstruction this time more than the first time. If we put aside the fact that some actors were allowed by the director to keep their hair too rich compared to directives and valuable guidance era, the reconstruction, in my opinion, is impeccable. Ioana Kovalcic’s decor is exemplary, the interior design of the apartments from 1972 is reproduced according to the book, as are the dances (though perhaps too long), whose authenticity was handled by Paul Dunka.

With everything Theses from July, for all the obvious turning of ideological screws, in 1972 the Romanians were still materially doing relatively well. No, not all, but the shops still had coffee and other goodies. It was not just freedom. Instead, there was the fury and omnipresence of Security. It was this anger that I found beautifully captured metronome Alexander Belts. Even if there were film critics who reproached Vlad Ivanov for repeating himself, the investigators of the communist political police were both Jim and Jeff (see the clearly visible differences between the characters played by Aline Florea and Vlad Ivanov), they had neither another out of modesty, they used physical and mental terror on some young people who did what? They listened to music, music that was forbidden to them by an increasingly draconian regime, and they wrote to someone who became a kind of symbol of freedom, nonconformity, the right to think freely and say and write what you think

This return to a regime of terror borrowed from the arsenal of Stalinism was tacitly accepted and accepted by adults (importantly, the behavior of Ana’s parents, played very well by Andrea Bibiri and Mihai Kelin), and this acceptance began to take root in the minds of the youth as well. The behavior of Mara Vikol’s character is relevant. Sorin comes to what we call today party convinced that he must fulfill his obligations, because otherwise he will have to suffer the consequences. His passport could be revoked. The right to permanent departure from the country. Ana has her own little rebellion. Then he succumbs. These two are perfectly played by Sherban Lazarovych and Mara Bugarin. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro