1 review
The translation of the title is 'Ambassadors looking for a motherland' and as the title alludes director Danieliuc tries from start to set the tone towards a sarcastic and critical view of the Romanian society in change after the fall of the Communism. The characters are a gang of crooks turning around the embassy of an African country which for long deserted and forgot its ambassador in Romania, letting him survive on good will and small crime. All characters seem actually to survive by petty crime, drug traffic, extortion or scam jobs in the atmosphere of farce of the whole society. The source of the present is in the foggy past, the main characters having participated in the 1989 events that led to the fall of the Communism, but same as the Romanina society cannot decide if there was a real popular revolution in 1989, the characters themselves seem unable to decide if they were victims or oppressors in the 1989 events.
The subject is tough and important for the Romanian society today as Romanian joins the EC and was already brought to screen in a number of better films in the last few years. Unfortunately this film lacks coherence, the story telling is deprived of sensibility and atmosphere, and the characters are no more than stereotypes that do not change too much, do not cause us any surprises or do not led us to feel any sympathy. Fair acting by some of the good Romanian actors like Horatiu Malaieile helps to a point but cannot do miracles. Indifference seems to be the almost general attitude the characters feel one to the other and get in their life on screen, indifference is what the viewer ends by feeling towards what is going on in the movie.
The subject is tough and important for the Romanian society today as Romanian joins the EC and was already brought to screen in a number of better films in the last few years. Unfortunately this film lacks coherence, the story telling is deprived of sensibility and atmosphere, and the characters are no more than stereotypes that do not change too much, do not cause us any surprises or do not led us to feel any sympathy. Fair acting by some of the good Romanian actors like Horatiu Malaieile helps to a point but cannot do miracles. Indifference seems to be the almost general attitude the characters feel one to the other and get in their life on screen, indifference is what the viewer ends by feeling towards what is going on in the movie.