Somewhere in Palilula Directed by Silviu Purcărete / Romania, 2012 / East of the West Competition, Kerlovy Vary IFF

That’s how young pediatrician Serafim lands in Palilula - a village somewhere on the map of 60s’ Romanian countryside - only to discover that the maternity ward is everything but a place where babies are brought to life: an occasional brothel, a football court for drunkards, a lunatic asylum, even a spa. The town is not different at all, a colourful bunch of grotesque characters devotionally attached to the bottle, dedicated to laze and ramble on all day, except for when they come together to demonstrate for world peace on specific weekdays, as the Party demands.

So, after loads of naturalistic dramas (in this festival also), are we finally witnessing the (re)birth of Eastern magic realism? Are we in front of a brilliant surrealistic satire of Romanian socio-political life under Ceaşescu’s tyranny? Does this depiction of Romania as a drunk madhouse vigorously tell us what Kusturica’s Underground taught us of Yugoslavia?

Not really, unfortunately, because the 141 minute-long fresco basically consists of an exhausting juxtaposition of sketches, a never-ending parade of random, dreamy anecdotes, with its characters reduced to lifeless puppets.

And it’s a real pity, because 62-years-old acclaimed theatre director Silviu Purcărete shows true visual talent and a Fellinian taste for choreographing and lighting mass scenes. When, at one hour from the beginning, we see our protagonist’s first actual dream, we can barely distinguish it from the previous and following scenes.

Many of these single episodes are still powerful and evoking: the scene with Serafim and a fellow citizen drinking together on a friend’s grave and watching the downward valley in blossom, where several young naked couples are making love under the plum trees (“Look how many bees are around, looks like we’ll have good plum brandy next year”); or the indoor peace demonstration, where an official statement of international solidarity is read until, suddenly, a sonorous flatulence is heard in the room: every participants turns backward to the following row and only Ceaşescu and his wife’s gigantic portrait are left to blame at the end of the hall, and the entire audience is left watching their enigmatic faces.

However, you simply can’t make a two hours and a half succession of dream-like episodes, so even these evocative representations vanish quickly and any chance of political satire is spoiled.

Purcărete wrote the script himself, and this could be an easy matter to point out given such problems in the sequence and plot structure. So Silviu, as I can perfectly see your great visual talent, let me be insolent for once as I have resisted two hours in Palilula: why don’t we meet again in five years, once you have found a good enough writer for your second film?

P.S. Facts and figures: mortality rate along the press screening 70% (50% left the room in the first 30’, 20% fell asleep; 1 lady frequently laughing, probably a Palilula native)

By Sebastiano Pucciarelli