Warning: This review contains sarcasm.
The film's subject is one which was rather overused in Romanian recent filmography: the story of a prostitute. The main innovative factor is that, while most stories about Romanian prostitutes take place in Italy, Spain or in Romania, this one takes place in Cyprus. The other innovative factor is that, if one looks carefully enough, one realizes the movie is not even about the main character. (Mind blowing, right?)
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In short, this is a Fantine (Les Miserables)-inspired redemption story that follows a young woman with a traumatic past, who now works as a prostitute in Cyprus to help support the child she had left back home with her mother. Among her clients, the most prominent one is her country's ambassador.
After finding out she is dying (of AIDS because there weren't enough clichés in this movie already), although a declared atheist, this modern-day Fantine starts visiting a priest to whom she tells her story and who helps her deal with her problems and change her life. Thanks to him, she refuses to sell her body anymore and focuses on a new romance with a young man she meets, not bothering to search for a decent job (probably because she is dying, after all), nor considering returning to Romania to spend what time she has left with her daughter (despite her dying). Eventually, she ends up alone in a Cypriot hospital, only the priest by her side.
But, as I was mentioning earlier, she is not even the true main character of the movie, nor is her story its true subject. The real main is the priest she's seeing and who is portrayed as a mistreated savior, the powers to be always against him, unwilling to see him for the morally superior being he truly is.
His nemesis, the ambassador - a middle-aged man who was never informed, apparently, that he can take his wife with him when he is sent abroad, and has, for that reason, basically abandoned his family and found consolation in the arms of prostitutes - only has one thorn in his side: the good priest who refuses to obey him (?), and whose main fault in his eyes is that he had built a church without asking for the Embassy's support. Of course, he also dislikes the fact that the priest calls him a Communist and that he reveals to the local Romanian community the "well-kept secret" of the existence of prostitution, a phenomenon the ambassador firmly and utterly publicly denies for some reason.
Sarcasm aside, in terms of acting, the movie is not bad. The cast, although very small, is rather convincing.
The true problem with this movie, though, is the scenario. The writing is superficial, un-researched, and fails short of being compelling. The characters are caricatures of real people, their motivations barely explored and impossible to truly understand.
While it's not the worst Romanian film I've ever seen, it is not one I either liked or would watch again.
The film's subject is one which was rather overused in Romanian recent filmography: the story of a prostitute. The main innovative factor is that, while most stories about Romanian prostitutes take place in Italy, Spain or in Romania, this one takes place in Cyprus. The other innovative factor is that, if one looks carefully enough, one realizes the movie is not even about the main character. (Mind blowing, right?)
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In short, this is a Fantine (Les Miserables)-inspired redemption story that follows a young woman with a traumatic past, who now works as a prostitute in Cyprus to help support the child she had left back home with her mother. Among her clients, the most prominent one is her country's ambassador.
After finding out she is dying (of AIDS because there weren't enough clichés in this movie already), although a declared atheist, this modern-day Fantine starts visiting a priest to whom she tells her story and who helps her deal with her problems and change her life. Thanks to him, she refuses to sell her body anymore and focuses on a new romance with a young man she meets, not bothering to search for a decent job (probably because she is dying, after all), nor considering returning to Romania to spend what time she has left with her daughter (despite her dying). Eventually, she ends up alone in a Cypriot hospital, only the priest by her side.
But, as I was mentioning earlier, she is not even the true main character of the movie, nor is her story its true subject. The real main is the priest she's seeing and who is portrayed as a mistreated savior, the powers to be always against him, unwilling to see him for the morally superior being he truly is.
His nemesis, the ambassador - a middle-aged man who was never informed, apparently, that he can take his wife with him when he is sent abroad, and has, for that reason, basically abandoned his family and found consolation in the arms of prostitutes - only has one thorn in his side: the good priest who refuses to obey him (?), and whose main fault in his eyes is that he had built a church without asking for the Embassy's support. Of course, he also dislikes the fact that the priest calls him a Communist and that he reveals to the local Romanian community the "well-kept secret" of the existence of prostitution, a phenomenon the ambassador firmly and utterly publicly denies for some reason.
Sarcasm aside, in terms of acting, the movie is not bad. The cast, although very small, is rather convincing.
The true problem with this movie, though, is the scenario. The writing is superficial, un-researched, and fails short of being compelling. The characters are caricatures of real people, their motivations barely explored and impossible to truly understand.
While it's not the worst Romanian film I've ever seen, it is not one I either liked or would watch again.