aleena_m Review of Queen of the Gypsies

Queen of the Gypsies (1976)

A glimpse at early XXth century gypsy life

[15 August 2009]

Zobar steals horses to make a living. Just like most of the members of his ethnic group, he doesn't have a lasting job in a precise place, he goes around searching for targets, then steals the horses and sales them to a local wealthy man. During one of these actions he and his fellows are surrounded by the local police and Zobar gets hurt in the chase. After escaping his followers, he is saved by a beautiful witch who heals his wound. He instantly falls in-love with her, but she vanishes from his sight. He returns to his lover, a beautiful blonde woman who's not a gypsy. In the meanwhile we see a local noble man who desperately seeks the attention of Radda, the beautiful witch, but just gets mocked by her. Zobar gets imprisoned after his father betrays him when under the menace that the policemen would shoot the horses of his "satra". He manages to escape just before being hung, but the friend who helps him in doing so gets killed in the chase. By now you would think that the two (Zobar and Radda) are destined to be together and everything works out to help them accomplish their destiny. They finally meet and spend romantic moments together, vowing to love one another. The morning after he proposes to her in front of all the members of her group, but she refuses him saying that she won't accept unless he bents on his knees and kisses her right hand. Instead of doing so the proud Zobar stabs her in the heart and gets himself killed by Radda's father. The whole "satra" gathers around the two lovers and mourns them. The most surprising moment of the movie, at least in my opinion, was the ending. We are far too used to sweet Hollywood endings, so it was quite disturbing, but at least it was different;) Otherwise I think it beautifully pictured the customs and way of life of the gypsies in that period (and things haven't changed a lot in this sense). As for the actors, someone here said that they were all Russians. Yes, it's true, when the movie was made they were all born in the Soviet Union, but you must admit that some names here couldn't be more typically Romanian: G. Ciubotaru, Dumitru Mocanu, even the leads Grigore Grigoriu and Svetlana (tipically Russian name) Toma (Romanian). There's a simple explanation for that: they were born in what is now The Moldavian Republic, so it's easy to understand why their names sound Romanian:) However, they all did a good job. Sometimes the intensity of the glances between the actors spoke much more than words would have done. Furthermore Radda's glance looked hypnotic more than once as she was a witch and managed to predict the future and had a special relationship with animals. I'm afraid I can't be objective enough to vote this movie as it isn't at all the kind of film that I normally watch... I actually prefer action-thriller-mystery ones and yesterday I watched it because my mother wanted to see it:p However, for someone who is interested in the life of the traveling gypsies in the early XXth century and in their typical music and dancing, this is really good!