When a large wave forms in the Amazon and other rivers in Brazil, the great roar that echoes for kilometers towards the mouth of the sea is called "pororoca". When it meets the ocean current, a wave is formed, also called "pororoca", which runs in reverse, upstream and causes both devastating and beneficial effects, without missing the sporting one, when surfers travel on their boards over the pororoca, reaching set records for staying on the same wave, beyond 30 minutes.
A similar effect of the overwhelming run of the pororoca is what an unexpected event produces in the lives of a Bucharest couple, when husband Tudor takes his little children Ilie and Maria to the park, while wife Cristina stays home. And then Maria disappears... The devastating effect of the clash between the love current of the small Romanian family and the evil current of the kidnapper (he or she) reaches even brute violence and death, the couple's disintegration and, consequently, what remains of the family unit.
Let us not imagine a sweetened melodrama like «Kramer vs. Kramer», but rather a detailed and meticulous journey through the psyches of Tudor and Cristina, which the director and screenwriter Constantin Popescu chose to describe during long, tense and feverish 154 minutes. Tudor's obsession and Cristina's madness grow simultaneously and distance them in a very dramatic way. I think you have to be bold to narrate events of such intensity, without the need for quick cuts or ellipses, so that we feel what the protagonists are going through.
The film highlights Popescu's precise and confident direction and Liviu Mãrghidan's agile photography. Like accomplices, both filmmakers describe the disappearance of Maria and the commotion it causes in the park in a 15-minute sequence shot. And without a doubt the performances of Bogdan Dumitrache (Tudor) and Iulia Lumânare (Cristina) are of great acuity and perception. A highly recommended motion picture, not to be missed.
