I must admit I found it quite odd in the beginning - the dialogue seems awkward, rather theatrical, and the actors seemed to move clumsily around the camera (or vice versa). But the final impression is that of genuine quality romance, a simple and noble story well told, no unnecessary words or scenes, everything falling into place, like the pieces in a puzzle, all of them glued together by the director's sensitivity and insight - actually, all of Malvina Ursianu's films that I've seen (unfortunately, there aren't many of them) made a strong impression on me. The story, as I said, is a simple one: Andrei (played by George Motoi), an architect, returns from Germany to Romania (at a time when emigration was strongly discouraged by the Romanian state) with his half-German wife Hanna (played by Gina Patrichi) on a business trip, to find his ex-love Lena (played by Silvia Popovici) married to his ex-best friend Costea (played by Cornel Coman). As they meet, Andrei realizes he still loves Lena and cares for Costea, even if the latter thinks his coming back is an intrusion upon their lives ("I thought all my friends have died./Your friends, maybe. The rest of us get along fine.") - his marriage with Lena doesn't seem to go anywhere, they're both architects and both have a busy schedule, so they're more like companions than a couple. What no one suspects is that Andrei has come home to die - he is suffering from lung cancer and it won't take long (as he comes back to his native place, he finds the old house deserted and the whole village moved on the mountain-side in order to build a dam - the scene is breath-taking, and the exquisite music has an important part in it - you get the feeling of emptiness that somehow suggests what is going to happen). Although he has longed for Lena - without knowing it - it is now clear to him he must let her go. In fact, he must let go of everything, and he lets his wife go back without him ("You're not the kind of person who needs anyone's support."), soon before writing a superb farewell letter to Lena ("But never mind. As we grow old, we'll remember these things less and less, until our grandchildren will look on them as mere atavisms."). I don't want (and I can't) to disclose any further details, the golden autumn atmosphere, the sense of a quiet, peaceful end, the sub-plots and the symbolical characters appearing along - you'll have to wait for some time to watch it on a Romanian channel (as far as I know, there's no DVD copy of it).
