Metronom

Original title: Metronom
Genre: Political drama
Director: Alexandru Belc
Country: Romania, France
Year of production: 2022
Czas: 102 min

Awards and nominations:
2022 Cannes Film Festival: Un Certain Regard - Directing Prize
2022 Gijón International Film Festival: Best Film
2022 International Crime and Punishment Film Festival: Best Feature Film
2022 Jerusalem Film Festival: Best International Film

Ana is devastated when she learns that her boyfriend Sorin is soon to leave Romania. It’s 1972, Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime is at its prime. For the teenage girl the separation is the end of the world. Her political awareness hasn’t been shaped yet. A party in her friend’s house is an occasion for the young couple to say goodbye to each other. They don’t think about the consequences. Booze mixes with countercultural music and plans to send a letter to Radio Free Europe. Carefree dances and conversations are brutally interrupted by an unexpected visit from Securitate, undercover police working for the autocratic state. In “Metronome” Alexandru Belc abruptly shifts from ethereal coming-of-age cinema to a heart-wrenching political drama, blurring the boundary between the private and the public spheres. With long, carefully thought out takes he intensifies suspense that’s been building up since the first scene. Entangled with political and historical processes changing Romanian reality into the oppressive and merciless system, the teenage characters seem to be doomed. The director doesn’t make snap judgements, instead stressing the young people’s innocence that’s being taken away from them not in the bedroom but in state offices destroying their integrity. Talented young actors in the main roles provide the film with vitality and naturalness while Vlad Ivanov, a real icon of Central European cinema known from “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”, is a personification of the Communist terror.
 
Author: Wojciech Tutaj
 
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Alexandru Belc – a Romanian director and screenwriter born in 1980. He graduated from National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. He directed several social TV campaigns and worked as an assistant director for distinguished auteurs of local cinema Corneliu Porumboiu and Cristian Mungiu. “Metronom” is his feature debut.

2023-04-15

20:30

2023-04-23

18:00