melquiadesestrada

I really enjoyed this series, with few exceptions (some episodes were just drawing out the time, going astray from the main story that kept you hooked). The 4th and fifth seasons were particularly awesome.

Now with the last episode from the fifth season they had completed the story and made it round, perfect. I had a definite sense of closure, everything added up just great. Then they had to give in to ratings and all that and renew the series. Consequently they managed to turn it into a worthless, repetitive, indigestible, even laughable piece of work.

I don't know what's with these American producers, they just don't know when to stop! I guess it's all about the money...

This is definitely a different kind of movie. At first I couldn't quite swallow it. Like one of those wired Frennch delicacies that taste so unexpectedly you can't decide whether to chew on or drop them out of your mouth. Yet, if you resist a bit further for your mouth and brain to accommodate, you find that the experience was one so rich and subtle it lingers on your senses for days.

There's not the least bit of glamor or pretence in this movie. The plot seem to develop rather too slowly, the dialogues do not have the sparkle which tingles the intellect and makes you feel smarter, the people are not handsome but slightly old, worn out, ordinary people and the sex scenes are stripped of magic, eroticism and, well, desire. Nevertheless, behind it all there's this gentleness, humour and a kind of sadness almost heartbreaking. Each character has a history of abandonment, abuse, absence of love behind them, which sort of handicaps the way they connect to other people, makes their words and gestures rather abrupt, apparently lacking emotion. And there's this "gentle man", a former cold blooded murderer, who can see their despondency and incidentally tries to give them a bit of what they need. In doing so, he attempts to shut a door on his bleak past. And it's not because he wants to be a new better man, but because he can no longer be the man that he was. He simply needs to be the father and the lover he was refused for many years, he needs to have an ordinary life. "Spring is coming", his reply at the end of the movie, and the small contemplative smile it's a welcome addressed to a life of better choices and the relief after just killing the last "shadow" of his past. Now I can tell no more without spoiling the movie, but I highly recommend it. Also, I recommend that you be patient. Even if you can't enjoy it from the very first, see it through. It will worth your while. I give this movie a 9 out of 10.

I've watched the first twenty minutes or so of the movie and i stopped. I simply couldn't bear watching the rest of it. I wanted to scream: 'the horror, the horror!' I am Romanian and I had the misfortune of experiencing the oppression of the communist regime with all its '2-hour TV programme, Ceausescu's speeches, cold apartments, endless queues for scraps of food, poor clothing, the security, people being afraid to talk freely etc.' Nevertheless, I never laid eyes on such brutal realities as this movies depicts. A work of art is supposed to produce the so called 'katharsis', that is, turn all the ugliness, fear and violence into something beautiful and above all meaningful. This movie only grotesquely pictures misery, abuse and hatred of life. No touch of humour or tenderness as rendered by Kusturica (who managed to find and graciously reveal universal values and emotions in the dirty, wrinkled faces of the gypsies). Somehow, Pintilie succeeded in eluding everything spiritual, cutting out all that makes a human being worth living on this earth. This movie only leaves you with disgust.