User reviews

"Nicky Ardelean - retired colonel" is perhaps one of the best movies that Pintilie had ever made. He brilliantly succeeds to dissect the Romanian realities with a pinching and malicious sense of humor. Perhaps not an easy movie, coming from an uneasy director, but a must see for movie lovers.

When i first saw this film,I laughed at the end.Then I started thinking,and thinking,and thinking...And what I realised was that i was in front of a masterpiece,a masterpiece about life,about the confrontation between the new and the old in Romania.The slow alienation of Niki is the slow madness we all sink in when we see our world turned upside down.This "brave new world" we all live in is nothing but a shallow image without any values or guidelines.Flo is the perfect representant of this pseudointelectual society and at the end,I think everybody who sees the film considers Niki's action justified.It seems one can only resolve his problems through violence nowadays.

I can't understand why so many "movie lovers" (especially that they are from Romania) have such a negative perspective in front of this film. It was just a life movie and from my point of view I recognized a lot of people who are next to me every day in that characters. It's a great movie, believe me, but you have to see what's at the back of it. Of course, it's neither for that people who are Rambo lovers nor Spiderman :)). Maybe, for a foreigner means nothing, but for us who live in this country it represents more than pure reality.In conclusion, i think that is the best Romanian drama i saw after the revolution from 89.Lough and cry in the same time.

This movie seems very modest at first but for those who have eyes to see behind the "nothing" in front they will find a masterpiece!

The story is very well written, but the director is even better!

Pintilie is the best Romanian director movie today.

Some may be scared by the truth they will find in this movie, like in all great art.

Many expect from movies just "entertainment".

They have no clue what art and truth are all about.

It is not just for Romanians, anybody can understand it.

The acting is superb!

I strongly recommend it to those who enjoy Quentin Tarantino.

Incredible movie! To me it seems very much like a Japanese garden; a garden which is said to be complete not when there is nothing to put in it, but when there is nothing to take out of it.

Here everything that does not completely follow the sense of the movie is eliminated. It leaves it in a pure state, not one overwhelming the viewer with symbols, but in a state that naturally gets us in the middle of the action. An action that puts us in the middle of a tedious life, marked by tragic events. An action that shows how insignificant life can be.

I've read some comments about Niki et Flo - they said it was a masterpiece - so I decided to see it myself. In my opinion, there are other much better Romanian movies out there, coming from Lucian Pintilie, this one being far from what I've been expecting before watching it.

Rebengiuc is one of my favorites Romanian actors and he didn't disappointed me. The plot is subtle and the ending surprisingly at first, but at a second thought credible and logical. The homemade recordings poured through the entire movie by the authors make sense too and they are naturally embedded there. It's all about seeing and hearing the man next to you, about how expected are the unexpected happenings when you decide to pay attention to details. They put you into the real life masterfully.

The story starts with a ceremonial burial, a man who died in a stupid accident. But this man was the son of someone, the husband of someone, the brother of someone; after his death the others still exist, this event is not the end of everything. And the life passes, every character continue to exist and each one has his own way of carrying it on. Eventually, we find ourselves focused on his father, Niki, and his father's friend - Flo - and the relationship between them. The events seem to be minor, there are some annoyances between those two guys and I was tempted to consider them boring, small talks amongst friends, old and grumpy, but friends. The director misguided us as the life itself does it always when it comes to consider the guy next door. But eventually the events turn out unexpectedly, the movie is over and that's it! Now, after the shock, you'll start to reconsider everything, try to understand how and why. And every little thing in the movie suddenly has got another meaning, now you understand that sometimes, deeply inside, into somebody's soul, under certain circumstances, something terrible could evolve and rich a breakpoint, and now you start to ask yourself how could you have been so blind, how could it happened without you never noticing anything unusual. This is great, indeed, about this movie!

On the other hand, you have to attend some sort of patience training before seeing the movie, in order to be able to reach the ending. There are so many boring senselessly prolonged moments that could have been skipped for the best, that I'm wondering (and I'm asking): how about about a 30 minutes version of that release?

I use to take a second and a third look to certain movies, but this is NOT one of them, for sure! I know, they have tried to have you put, for the grand finale. Then again, there are some other much painless meanings to insert you into the stillness before the storm, I'm sure! It's a shame, in my opinion, to start working on such a great idea and to fail completely like this.

I wasn't prepared to see this movie, I switched the TV on, zapped around, and stopped, because the few seconds I looked at without knowing what's all about, where and when it plays were enough to fascinate. A slow, very calm camera, a half absurd, but totally natural conversation with actors being as real as real life is. First after the movie ended I found out what its name was, so I came to see if I find any information here. Well, it wasn't much.

In my opinion this movie deserves a 9 from an international viewer, but a clean 10 from somebody who knows Romania. Fantastic director (Lucian Pintilie is well known on the European cinematic scene), fantastic - despite its simplicity and linearity - script, professionally developing plot, great actors - and I really mean great, on best international level - and a very fine, sensible psychological and sociological study.

I am deeply moved and still - after many hours - enthusiastic. The movie deserves standing ovations.

Niki et Flo is the best movie i'd seen in Romania.All day and all night i recommend this movie to all of my friends.From Lucian Pintilie this was the first movie.Seconded by Terminus Paradis,Dupa Amiaza Unui Tortionar.Great movies,great director.I love him.When I was young I saw Too Late and i was shocked by the way that L. Pintilie is filming the scenes.Niki et Flo is a great movie about the Romanian's's life in Bucharest.The classical Romanian's's life.Flo is very very funny.In every movie that Pintilie was the director,R. Vasilescu was very funny.Again D. Chiriac.Great actress.Coca Bloos to.I saw this movie for about 16 times.I really want to see him again.I discover new things.

It's so sad that Romanian audiences are still populated with vulgar and uneducated individuals who relish this kind of cheap and demonstrative shows, as superficial and brutal as the "Garcea" series or the "Vacanta mare" child-plays... The difference is that Mugur Mihäescu, Doru Octavian Dumitru and other such sub-artisans never presume to claim their shows as "art". Pintilie, who 40 years ago made a very good movie ("Duminicä la ora sase") followed by another one, nice enough ("Reconstituirea"), tries to declare his film-lenghts "art works" - but, unfortunately, he masters at a way too limited level the specifically cinematographic means of expression. As such, "Niki Ardelean" offers again a sample of "HOW NOT" - this being about its only merit.

I saw this movie twice. I can't believe Pintilie made such a fantasy movie. I'm also a movie/theatre director and I know what I speak. This is not Romania anymore, but I see the events are happening in the same period with the incident from 11 September. No story, no plot, nothing. No conclusion, no message, nothing profound, nothing hidden. Just empty images.

What most of Romanians don't know, this movie is for the french viewers, not for us. They really believe that is the reality in Romania. Also for teenagers. Pintilie should stop making movies. I don't really know if we can call this a movie, maybe a horror :) And we wonder why we've got such an image in Europe. This WAS a reality, but isn't anymore. A good friend of mine from the Brithish embassy said: "You have no idea what a long way Romanian people walked from Ceausescu".

This guy has no idea of cinema. Okay, it seems he made a few interestig theater shows in his youth, and about two acceptable movies that had success more of political reasons cause they tricked the communist censorship. This all is very good, but look carefully: HE DOES NOT KNOW HIS JOB! The scenes are unbalanced, without proper start and and, with a disordered content and full of emptiness. He has nothing to say about the subject, so he over-licitates with violence, nakedness and gutter language. How is it possible to keep alive such a rotten corpse who never understood anything of cinematographic profession and art? Why don't they let him succumb in piece?

Yes, he is! ...No, not because of Pintilie likes to undress his actors and show publicly their privies. Pintilie IS THE naked "emperor" - so to speak...

It's big time for someone to state the truth. This impostor is a voyeur, a brat locked in an old man's body. His abundance of nude scenes have no artistic legitimacy whatsoever. It is 100% visual perversion: he gets his kicks by making the actors strip in the buff and look at their willies. And if he does this in front of the audience, he might eve get a hard-on! Did you know that, on the set of "Niki Ardelean", he used to embarrass poor Coca Bloss, by telling her: "Oh, Coca, how I wanna f*** you!"? She is a great lady, very decent and sensitive, and she became unspeakably ashamed - to his petty satisfaction! And, as a worrying alarm signal about the degree of vulgarity and lack of education in Romanian audiences, so many people are still so foolish to declare these visual obscenities "works of art"! Will anyone have ever the decency to expose the truth of it all?

Terminus Paradis was exceptional, but "Niki ardelean" comes too late. We already have enough of this and we want something new.

Big directors should have no problems seeing beyond their time, not behind. Why people see Romania only as a postrevolutionary country?

We are just born not reincarnated, and nobody gives a s**t anymore about old times. Most people dont remember or dont want to remember, and the new generation of movie consumers dont understand a bit. This should be the first day of romanian movie not the final song - priveghi! Maybe younger directors should make the move.

It's very sad that Lucian Pintilie does not stop making movies. They get worse every time. Niki and Flo (2003) is a depressing stab at the camera. It's unfortunate that from the many movies that are made yearly in Romania , the worst of them get to be sent abroad ( e.g. Chicago International Film Festival). This movie without a plot , acting or script is a waste of time and money. Score: 0.02 out of 10.

I watched the first quarter hour of this movie. And I was blown away. I even shouted an expletive. This is not a movie to watch alone. So I postponed it to see it with a small group of friends and popped in another disc.

The first 15 minutes were good. Probably the first 40 minutes were good. Good camera: fixed when it needed to be, and mobile otherwise. There frame wasn't crowded with useless objects. The characters were well drawn. The whole scene was made to point out the ridicule of the necromantic eastern death ritual in its mixture with modernism.

Than the story splits into branches. And the story falls on itself, like a flat tire, like a grounded weather balloon. The shock scene, featuring full frontal nudity is wonderful in itself. The actors do their job well, unlike other Romanian made movies where the actors have an unconvinced, stressed voice, apparently aware of their own nakedness. But the scene is from another movie, as it has no value for the story of Niki. Or Flo. Or the death. And than it strikes you: WHAT is the story? The title and the silly talk given by Lucian Pintilie at the end of the DVD say something about Niki. The french title says Niki and Flo. Yet you have a burial which takes the whole first part. And later on you have the son featured in the foreground. Than you have the daughter and her husband. Badly drawn, the never truly develop. But they take almost another third of the movie. They have the foreground, they generate the shock. At the end of the movie I knew that nothing has happened. In the style of script writer Cristi Puiu all you get is a family picture, a snapshot to fuel some nostalgics about the good–bad old times. Niki never changes in an hour an a half. Flo never changes. The wives are just misogynistic accessories. The children are there. But are they there? For those who lived the era, maybe the can identify the type, the cliché young military star with a father that is «somebody» in the army, the young computer operator looking for a job in the West, but the international viewer doesn't have that chance.

In the end is the same old story: a cardboard picture hanged in some romantic scene. The story of Niki, and not the dead son as I assumed, revealed by the dynamic Flo. A story that could have been done in 20 wonderful minutes without all this fluff and prop. But Pintilie never really went away from the school that generated Sergiu Nicolaescu. Film is a job, film is a way to make money and be somebody, just like the army is for Niki. In a way, the story of Niki is the story of Lucian Pintilie. But its more like a family album, as the events build up a chronology and not a story.

Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

You haft to be an east-European man to understand this movie, it's about the simple life of a family living in a block. The movie has particularly no action, just simple facts and small details that brings a smile on your face if you understand them. Lucian Pintilie has done some great movies (ex. Balanta) but this is not the greatest.

The small budget of this movie makes it what it is, a Romanian film. The Romanian film lovers probably you will like this movie.

Niki is an old colonel of army, it's a man who had love only for the army, his daughter and his son in-law haft to go in U.S.A. to earn more money. Flo is the father of Andrei the son in law of Niki, let's say that he is the negative person in this movie, you will find him very unlike. If you want to know more you haft to see the movie.

This movie begins with an ordinary funeral... and it insists so hard on this ordinary funeral feel that i lost interest within 5 minutes of watching, and started skipping scenes. It seems to me whoever made this movie is afflicted to the extent of becoming trapped in a permanent morbid trance, unable to contemplate anything else but death and destruction. Well, I ain't one of the dark kids from Southpark, I want a movie that within 10 minutes gets me well into an interesting story, I won't sit and watch 10 minutes of nothing but preparations for a funeral.. My grandma on her last years was fascinated by funerals, perhaps she might have enjoyed this "movie".