Day 1 at Cannes Film Festival: first reviews for Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada

Newsroom 12/05/2016 | 12:43

For this 69th edition of Cannes film festival, Romania has an impressive year at Cannes, being screened five of our movies, and two Romanian films out of twenty have made in the festival’s main competition. Cristian Mungiu’s Bacalaureat, and Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada are the movies selected for the competition.

Moreover, Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs (Caini) was selected in the Un Certain Regard category. The short films competition will also screen a Romanian movie, 4:15 PM The end of the world, directed by Cătălin Rotaru and Gabi Virginia Sarga, while Alexandru Badea´s All rivers run to the sea (Toate fluviile curg în mare) will be in competition for Cinéfondation section.

The first competition film to screen for the press at this year’s festival was Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada. The movie is placed three days after the terrorist attack on the offices of Parisian weekly Charlie Hebdo and forty days after the death of his father, Lary (Mimi Branescu), a doctor in his forties is about to spend the Saturday  at a family gathering to commemorate the deceased. But the occasion does not go according to expectations. Forced to confront his fears and his past, to rethink the place he holds within the family, Lary finds himself constraint to tell his version of the truth.

Variety magazine notes that “To the extent that funerals are for the living, not the deceased, Puiu’s overlong domestic drama somewhat taxingly allows those gathered to seek their own catharses, rewarding audiences with the patience to unravel this tangled ball of yarn. That, of course, is a coded way of saying that the vast majority of moviegoers would be bored silly by being locked up in a Romanian apartment for three hours, watching as characters whose names and connections to one another are barely given shuffle from room to room, alternately avoiding and stirring trouble. The good news is, apart from whatever visions of Monument Valley treasure hunts Puiu’s defiantly irrelevant/misspelled title may conjure, anyone who stumbles into “Sieranevada” by accident or chance — as opposed to die-hard cinephilia and admiration of the Romanian New Wave, of which Puiu is essentially the godfather — should immediately realize his blunder.”

The Playlist says Cristi Puiu’s Brilliant, Bustling, Bristling ‘Sieranevada’, explaining also “Puiu is no stranger to the comedy of realist absurdity, having submitted essentially a doctoral thesis on the subject (as well as a foundational work of the Romanian New Wave) with 2005’s “The Death of Mr Lazarescu.” But the despairing irony of that work, let alone the drier nihilism of his follow-up “Aurora” is replaced here by something sadder and simultaneously more hopeful. Ultimately, ‘Sieranevada’ can be read as perhaps the most prosaic ghost story ever told, in which the ghost is simply the quietest guest in a loud room, hanging back watchfully and maybe sneaking the odd illicit cabbage roll as life — messy, bizarre, dramatic, beautiful life — goes on without him.”

“The good news is that it’s still a top-drawer New-Wave film, familiar in the best ways while offering fascinating insights into human nature, identity and foibles. Though almost three hours long, committed arthouse fans are sure to be responsive, with the feature’s undercurrent of black humor as well as Puiu’s reputation very marketable assets,” notes The Hollywood Reporter.

The Wrap says that ““Sieranevada” might have a chance if jury president George Miller and his fellow panelists are in a very dark, very patient mood.”

The Upcoming explains that “Sieranevada is a claustrophobic, enthralling and supremely intelligent film by director Cristi Puiu. This is the first film shown in competition at Cannes, and it’s a cracker, a tale of an Orthodox Christian Romanian family undergoing crisis, conflict and not-quite resolution. Sometimes difficult, uncompromising and arresting, the film is also sharp and often surprisingly hilarious: when the characters laughed, the audience often laughed in return – even in relief.”

“There’s a feast to be had, arguments to be taken seriously and stifled laughter to be shared, in the way a family can only share it and stifle it at exactly the same time. At almost three hours, Puiu’s latest is as long as most family events are, but the observations made are brilliantly bright and there is love here, after all,” mentions Cine-Vue.com

More updates on the topic to come

Oana Vasiliu

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