29/26
– by director Bogdans Muresanu
In 1989, Romania, on the brink of revolution, six lives intersect during protests and personal struggles that lead to the explosive fall of Ceausescu and the communist regime. “The New Year That Never Came”; tells the stories of the last two days of Romanian captivity. This is, incredibly, the debut feature film – at the age of 50! A meticulous, mature, emotional film and a history lesson for those Romanians – unfortunately, too many – who do not know or have forgotten the past of the communist dictatorship. In my opinion, this is an important film in the history of Romanian cinema, just like Luciano Pintil’s “Reconstitution” from 1970.
Even when foreign radio stations announce the protests that have begun in Timișoara, nothing moves in Bucharest
It was only the second film by the most important Romanian theater and film director in the second half of the 20th century. The action “The New Year That Never Came”; takes place on December 20 and 21, 1989, after the end of the communist dictatorship. The film’s characters, like most of those who lived at that time, have neither the feeling nor the hope of surviving the changes that are about to happen, the collapse of communism, which has already happened in almost all European countries. Eastern Europe. The secret police of the Securitate seem omnipotent, the propaganda machine is in full swing, life in scarcity and fear continues.
A Securitate officer manipulates his informants, who monitor the lives of students and intellectuals
He also has a mother who is about to be evicted from the house where she has lived all her life, which is about to be demolished to make way for grandiose buildings in the new city center. A television group must urgently replace a New Year’s Eve tribute to the dictatorship starring an actress who has fled to the West, a situation reminiscent of the collection of short films “Memories of the Golden Age”; from Mungiu. The actress, who has risen to the occasion, has a crisis of conscience when she is forced to participate in a series. A family is thrown into crisis when they discover that their eight-year-old boy has written a letter to a communist version of Santa Claus, asking to see Uncle Nick dead, “because that’s what Daddy wants.” The son of a television director and his friend plan to flee the country across the Danube-Yugoslav border. The music of Ravel’s Bolero shifts narrative planes, the tension builds, the boiling point approaches.
Will the mamaliga (Romanian polenta) explode?
I thought the narrative structure was excellent. At first, the viewer may be a little confused by the variety of characters and situations, but quite quickly the common denominator (fear, hopes suppressed in the struggle with resignation, anger suppressed for a long time) and the connections between the characters are revealed. For those who lived through this era, the setting and the cinematic style create a sense of immersion in the past. All the actors are excellent, but I cannot help but mention three names: Iulian Postelnicu (who played important roles in at least three good films that I have seen in recent years), Adrian Wanczyk and Nicoleta Hancu. I found the reconstruction of these last days and hours of the dictatorship impressive, and the only major flaw was related to the last scene, namely the rally in the Palace Square, where it was thought to intervene in a key detail of the beginning of the protest.
history leaves room for revisionist interpretation
was changed. For 35 years, Romanian cinema has repeatedly returned to the last years of the dictatorship and even to the times when Romania’s fortunes changed. Several of the films produced were memorable.