Metronom

In order for the readers of this review to fully understand my position, I need to situate myself in the picture- the historical one, not the movie. At the time of the unfolding of that story I was 2 years younger than the protagonists, a tenth grader in one of the two best high schools in my town, an avid listener of Free Europe and a constant fan of Cornel Chiriac's Metronom, to whom I owe my still present love of good music and my sentimental involvement with good, everlasting music. To this day, every 4th of March is the day I light a candle as a remembrance of that day of 1975 when he was assassinated, in Cornel's memory. Having lived through that period and the subsequent one, it came as a shock to me to read all those reviews written either by people my age, who should have lived through similar constraints and so hopefully developed a similar attitude, or by people much younger, who completely lack the accurate information and/or the desire to get it, so they express opinions just because they can, with no relevance whatsoever to the actual events. You know what they say: "Those who ignore their past are bound to relive it." Such reviewers speak about "the plot" of the film. Guys, that "plot"was our lives, the despicable politics of the communist régime to keep your head down, your mouth shut, your "eyes on the prize"- the prize in this case being educated by the system into brainwashing and believing that the socialist/ communist régime is unquestionably the best of them all. I can't blame the generation of our parents for not fighting against the oppression, though we are currently living through times in which it is fashionable to blame it all on the parents, irrespective of generation, as long as it justifies one's failure. We, in our turn, were educated in a culture of fear of the authoritoes, of the securitate services, of each other; the older generation knew it was best to beware of everyone, since you never knew whom to trust. Actually, after the revolution of December 1989, when the archives of the securitate were opened to everyone, many of us made the epic mistake of wanting to see their own record, thus finding out that their friends, relatives and often spouses were the ones who had turned them in and gave regular reports about what was spoken in their houses. The blackmail to which the protagonists are subjected, either the classmate who thus gives his family the opportunity of fleeing the socialist Romania and living in the West, or the whole class who will only sit their finals- the bac- if they agree to collaborate with the securitate indefinitely were among us- they and their parents, making a hideous crime of the fact of listening to good, international music. For a large part of the youth of those times the importance of music to keep our heads above water, to keep us functional in a drab, gloomy world full of prejudice, fear and self loathing for not being able to do anything against it will never be underlined strongly enough. Nor will be the trauma that we lived with. I am sorry for the new generations who, unless they have been educated by parents with a strong and reliable conscience, seem to be unable to appreciate the numerous freedoms which they have, not even when faced with the harsh realities of those times. Guys, ask yourselves why those teenagers were dressed in uniforms in order to go to school, why they had numbers sewn onto said uniforms like convicts in prisons, why they were listening to music in secret and writing letters to the radio stations in the West in secret, why they were abusively taken from their houses to the securitate station. Eh? Why should you complicate yourselves with such useless questions, since you've been living in a free world, enjoying all liberties at will, having all music at your disposal, and being torn by a single type of torture: what to wear at school the next day in order to be fashionable enough. But for this you should show some curiosity and go and watch the movie. We were 4(four) people in the theater, the rest were watching Wakanda; black panthers seem more appealing and easier to watch than your recent history.

The director Alexandru Belc must have had good advisors; the period accents are well placed, the décor detalis, from house and institution furnishing and deorations to clothes and underwear, the drab atmosphere, the naiveté of the young protagonists, as opposed to the fear and precaution of their parents. The sound track must have cost a fortune out of the film budget- The Doors, Janis Joplin, I don't know about Mircea Florian or Sideral Modal Quartet, but they were rightfully chosen in a film about music, about failed lives in a failed society- not that the present society were perfect... The end of the film, showing all our protagonists debating the subject from the Romanian literature exam comes as a final blow- or maybe an expected one, depending on each viewer's experience: all our protagonists could sit the bac because they had made the pact with the devil, by signing contracts of informants with the securitate. In high school I used to have a school mate who, for a similar "crime", was forbidden to sit the bac and went to work in a coal mine, without graduating. I have no idea what became of him... The film is not perfect. If I were to direct it, I wouldn't show a boy with such long hair - at the party, the one with whom Ana dances, I wouldn't show that outburst of violence- the securitate guy smashing that other boy's face with the phone in front of so many witnesses, I would express a lot more concern about getting pregnant- a constant worry for young girls in those days.

On the whole, "Metronom" comes as close as it gets to a faithful depiction of the times, with the extensive help of the cast- Mara Bugarin, a teenager in love with her heart on her sleeve, unable to believe the sleeve could be so tainted; Vlad Ivanov, who seems to be made for roles of villains such as this one- a securitate colonel: he doesn't hesitate to threat Ana with a gang bang in the basement of the building if she doesn't cooperate, him being the father of a girl barely older than Ana. The best indicator of how much this film caught me is the fact that I simply forgot about the traditional nachos with cheese cream sauce and I left them uneaten, only to discover them almost untouched at the end of the movie. Plus the music score, which sent me back memory lane- aka Youtube- to search for those songs long unheard, but not forgotten. How could one forget "Cu pleopa de argint"- With a Silver Eyelid, by Mircea Florian, albeit a nod to Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Lucky Man"? All in all this film is a respectful reconstitution of times that all young Romanians should know about, in order to avoid repeating them and all older Romanians should too, in order to avoid making fools of themselves when stating, full of conviction, that the socialist/ communist epoch was the best that could be and is to be regretted in contrast with the world we live in? But these representatives of the older generation could very well be the teenagers of yore...

The movie honors Cornel Chiriac, a cult figure among the youth listening to his Radio Free Europe's Metronom music show, who was assassinated by the Securitatea secret police in 1975. How was to be hippy in communist Romania? Partying, being in and making love, listening to political and music programs broadcasted by Western radios, and attempting to send letters to them. Not all of these activities were very tolerated by the communist regime, and some were illegal. When Ana, in love with Sorin, is interrogated by Securitatea officers together with her partygoing classmates about their intention to send a letter with music requests to Radio Free Europe, she brutally understands the vicious power of the totalitarian regime and its unfair encroachment into the fragile minds of sincere lovers. The film is an astute and emotional commentary on the complicated relationship between (political) freedom and (uncertainties of) love.

This one and the previous "movie" I've seen should be in a double feature.

From the stupid "kissing booth" premise to "the communist Securitate is trying to put me, a teenager, in jail for listening to Led Zeppelin and writing a freakin' letter". It really puts in perspective what kind of people we are that we allow this to happen to ourselves. We are not that anymore, we go in the streets and we peacefully protest now haha. And really puts in perspective what kind of dumb teenagers there are now, with all their freedom, bah...no wonder we are trying to keep that period longer and longer.

As a movie it keeps that communist vibe all the way, the vibe we are trying to lose in our movies now but hey, there are still stories to be told.

During communism rock music was officially forbidden! Listening to Radio Free Europe was also illegal. This kind of stories really happened, it's not fiction! People in the Western World and the ones who didn't lived at that time should try and understand the great "benefits" of the socialist regime. The movie is very good ,re-creats the atmosphere of the '70s , in Romania. If you don't like it I believe it was ment to be boring and annoying , because that was the atmosphere, that was our life ! A grey world, with no real opportunity, no freedom...I pay my respect to Cornel Chiriac,who defected in 1969 and to all my fellow Romanians ,who played and listened to rock music, as a form of protest ,against the communist dictatorship . I'm also proud to be one of them....

The sequel of events is interesting but there is a scene that ruins the whole movie with it's exaggeration. It's true that the Security Police (Securitate) was trying to keep the current communist regime in power with methods of terrorizing and making people denounce one, another. That's why they were paid. But the scene in which a teenager is asking for a phone call and in return he is hit by a "securitate" officer with the telephone in the headin the face of all his colleagues is really unrealistic. Yes they would've threaten and verbally harras you. But that would've been basically all in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Especially to some youngsters that were sending letters to the Europa Libera Radio Station. Violence was really unnecessary and even counterproductive. Also for a virgin as Ana is. To make sex with the boy she likes in the daytime, with his mother inside the house and leaving afterwards is also unrealistic and without any point. I feel like the movie could've been better but beating this dead horse with the Securitate and communist regime ruined it a lot.