How I Celebrated the End of the World

I've been trying to watch all Romanian films of late, although without much success. Some are just too ludicrous and others simply can't arouse any interest on my behalf.

I'd seen Trafic from Mitulescu, a slice of life piece from the busy happenings of Bucharest, which was a celebrated achievement of Romanian cinema at that time - with some merit. Now, "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" is, firstly, a film with a striking title that can lead you on - erroneously. Going beyond the metaphor, I guess you can accept it as what the end of communism symbolized: the end of an era.

The film itself is about a young girl, Eva, (very well played by D. Petre) who is not only passing through the usual problems which come with adolescence, but who must also bear the weight of communism and its effects on her shoulders. I myself saw in her a prototype of the modern woman, the one who wants to think for herself and act as she deems is correct (but who also understands the importance of sacrificing herself at times), and all this burden of age and political restraints are fantastically mirrored on D. Petre's face. However, the film doesn't really go far beyond illustrating the last segment of the Ceausescu era - the fear, the hate, the desire to flee. While Eva's constant struggle, between responsibility (family) and rebellion, does deliver a certain dose of tension and dynamics, the film felt unsatisfying in the end.

What I'm referring to is that feeling you expect to encounter after a rather warm film about a different kind of childhood with a rather different sort of dreams: that overwhelming experience of fulfillment - both what the characters are concerned and the audience. So while "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" has its good moments and conveys a very true perspective of those days, it simply did not satisfy me. Maybe it's the fact that I "missed out" on the era and, consequently, can't truly understand them. But what I felt was real enough for me, so the problem must lie within the story.

I have just seen this movie and I loved it. Maybe for the little boy who plays his role very well, maybe for the strange relationship that Eva has with either guys, but especially for how the director managed to capture the communist era in every aspect of the movie. Romanians may understand this better. The revolution took place almost 17 years ago, a new regime was installed since then and almost everything has changed. But this movie brings back even the smallest detail, from the clothes that students wore, music they listened to, even haircuts they had, to the state of the streets, houses, cars. It's amazing, but I had the strong impression that the movie was made many years ago. I would recommend this movie to all Romanians because, in a small detail, it gives a different perspective about the revolution. But also, non-Romanians should watch it just to see how difficult times we have been through.

Not too strong on plot, "How I spent the end of the world" is strong on mood and feeling, and it very well compensates. I usually don't go crazy about "mood pieces" but this is definitely more. I caught the film at the up and coming Transylvania Film Festival (Tiff for short) where the film had its national premiere after a decent reception at Cannes only a few weeks earlier. The film is a MUST for any Romanian who has lived through the Ceausescu years as the filmmakers went through great pains to accurately depict the mood of those days from general landscape to the toy trucks, school uniforms and furniture all Romanians possessed and shared during an era of uniform mass-production. The film stands out as the harbinger of something historians will hopefully refer to as "the Romanian New Wave." With films like this, and "Marilena from P7" as well as Porumboiu's "Has it Been, Has it not Been" (another personal take on the shattering Revolution of 1989), Romanian cinema is finally entering the world circuit, and will hopefully stay there for a while.

I've seen the film by mistake as there was nothing else on TV...i didn't what it was about but the title seemed exciting...What can I say?It was absolutely breath taking...Although most people would dismiss it as being yet another stupid film about communism,I would say that this one is by far the best Romanian film in quite a while...And the nomination for the Academy's Awards says it all...I loved because it was simple...It didn't make use of complex language or of extraordinary characters...It just showed the true face of Romania under the communist regime....It had beautiful characters...The images were perfect...The music was perfect...It's a small piece of jewelery...And what's more...Dorotheea is absolutely stunning...:D

It's an excellent movie but unfortunately it's hard to understand this movie unless u are Romanian and u lived in Romania during the communist era. I realize there were some scenes that were quite tricky for non-Romanians and the movie was full of symbols that were quite difficult to follow but for Romanian people were full of significance. The music is as well full of significance for people who grew up in the communist time. Maybe non-Romanian people will only see how Romanian during that communist era lived without power, out of running water and out of food but the film is a little bit more than that....maybe after seeing this movie u can get a little understanding about what does it mean to live in a communist country. Maybe the director is young and quite unexperienced but I think it's a really interesting movie to be seen and I definitely recommend it.