Miracle

It's not because of this film especially but I have decided to not watch Romanian films for some years. There are certain aspects that I got sick of:

• very long shots that are useless and provide nothing (yes the long shots are very European specific but they do in in certain moments to evoke certain emotions. If you do this for the whole film then it's missing the mark)
• characters complaining about communism/old days/ being poor
• very typical Romanian characters
• that shot that many films have that have some sort of shock value or have to keep you disturbed for some minutes for no reason

These are some aspects that are in most of these films and you will find in this one as well.

The police officer is the only character that I enjoyed watching in this movie.

The ending also was kind of interesting although it doesn't completely make sense.

Maybe I just want a different kind of movie out of the Romanian cinemas that doesn't just fallback on some specific characteristics.

The story you see in this movie is about regular life with its ugly rearing in occasional violence and cruelty.

What you don't explicitly see, and what this movie is all about, is the hidden dimension, a profoundly spiritual one, that we cannot grasp but, occasionally, we suffer its brutal intervention in the real life that we are well conditioned to perceive.

All throughout the movie there are clues that will explain the seemingly unexplainable actions of the characters. I confess, I was clueless at the end of the movie about almost everything that happened in it. But the revelation came after like a lightning strike that shed light to all dark corners of the enigma.

After all, the movie is, every second of it, about the gargantuan struggle between good and evil. It is about how good and evil is unexpectedly taking shape in the real world. It is about the unbearable burden of sin and the heavy price humans have to pay to redeem themselves from it.

I had the chance to read a couple of the external reviews about this movie and they are favorable to the film. The only problem is that in order for the plot to make sense is that the "determined" police officer in charge of the investigation does not seem to be aware that nowadays one have DNA tests to proof certain crimes. And also that you can make a guess about certain things just by tracing the latest cell phones calls of the victim. If you can accept that then maybe the plot could make sense to you.

On the other hand I was never friend of movies in which one has to be a wizard to understand certain scenes. I like direct language. So be aeare.

Aesthetically its fine, acting is fine.. but conceptually it makes no sense.

Plot is bad, human actions are nonsense.. and philosophically it's a malevolent universe against god..against rationality .. common sense even.

It supports a technocracy where both taxies and police and archaic religion is gone .. you can't go half measures .. it is not binary. This is what the movies suggests.. the world as a dichotomy. Ironically considering that is what they project towards the "old" world.. as something bad, sad, tragic.

I gues i am grateful that the competence of the creators was low enough to raise too many logical problems and not create good art )

I can't understand the negative reviews here. This is an excellent movie! The only quibble I might have is that the pacing is a little slow. Some scenes linger too long on nothing or pan the landscape at an excruciatingly slow clip. But acting was solid, direction strong and cinematography beautiful. It's always interesting to see the world in movies and this was a nice way to see a country I'll probably never get a chance to visit.

The miracle of the title was initially cathartic but was somewhat muted by a following revelation that took the mood down a few notches.

Special props to the acting by the guy who played the main detective - he did a great job!