Synopsis

The emotional core of the movie is a heavy state that constantly weighs on the main characters; a state stemming from a deep sense of abandonment. The movie’s running time is long, charged with a deadly poetry.

But who among those who have experienced, at least transiently, the feeling of abandonment and helplessness, would not say that it comes with a feeling of enormous time dilation, a slow and unstoppable process, like the hardening of a concrete formwork?

Fleeting Loves (1974) - by Malvina Urșianu - romantic film online on CINEPUB

Directed by: Malvina Urșianu
Script: Malvina Urșianu
Cast: George Motoi, Silvia Popovici, Gina Patrichi, Cornel Coman, Nina Costa, Mihai Pălădescu, Emilia Dobrin, Maria Cumbari, Iulian Vișa, Mihaela Nestorescu, Delia Mateescu, Iulian Necșulescu, Sorin Gabor, Ion Niciu, Dorel Vișan, Rodica Platzman, Beate Fredanov
Producers: Casa de Filme 3
Cinematography by: Gheorghe Fischer, Alexandru Întorsureanu
Edited by: Lucia Anton
Sound: Anușavan Salamanian
Music: Tiberiu Olah, Gheorghe Zamfir (panflute), Aurelian Octav Popa (clarinet)
Year: 1974
Category: Feature film
Genre: Drama, romance
Duration: 104 minutes

138,905 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

A Romanian architect, settled abroad, is reunited with his native places, with the people he knew, with the women he loved, with the echoes of what happened elsewhere, with “the great transformations taking place in the capital, on the building sites and in the villages of Romania”. Condemned by an incurable illness, but also overwhelmed by these realities and an irrepressible longing for his homeland, the hero decides to return home for good.

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“It is a movie that speaks not about more or less fleeting loves, but about a return, about a reconciliation with oneself and with others, about a resignation with oneself, with those who understand or do not understand and with destiny which, in drama, is always implacable”Mircea Alexandrescu – (Cinema magazine, 1974)

“Fleeting Loves (1974) can be considered the masterpiece of the director’s filmography. A ‘love story’ is articulated from small intimate details, detectable to the attentive eye, which does not seek to impose its conclusions through stridency. It does not allow itself to be deciphered with the power of the obvious on the first viewing, nor does it seek the categorical truths so dear to the etatist commander – who also tried to mutilate the movie. Beyond the inferno of the two, or the ephemeral loves that have been or are, passing through the existence of the perishable being, triumphant over the small or great imperfections of life, there is that love that will never perish.”Horațiu Damian, in istoriafilmului.ro

“The movie of a feeling (of longing and love of country), the end of a wandering, the awakening of a conscience.”Călin Căliman in istoriafilmuluiromanesc.ro

“A movie about death, loneliness, love”Magda Mihăilescu (Flacăra magazine, 1974)

“Fleeting Loves closes, in its cinematic severity, at least three of the most disturbing scenes ever seen on the Romanian screen: two almost without words.”Magda Mihăilescu (Flacăra magazine, 1974)

AWARDS

  • 1974 – ACIN – Award for male role

TRIVIA

  • Malvina Urșianu said that it is almost impossible for her to re-watch this movie so affected by the censorship of the time. Two of the movie’s main sequences were massively amputated. “There followed a long period of nervous attrition during which I was asked to edit, to add – to make the movie more moral, to bring all sorts of motivations to the hero and to condemn him clearly for the reckless act of having, at one point, left the country.” (M.U.)
  • 1974, the year of the film’s release, was a tumultuous year, described by many social changes: the number of pages of the magazine “Cinema” halved, the portrait of Ceaușescu on page 3 becoming a permanent feature/ it was the year of the amendment of the Constitution/ the year of the resumption of work on the Danube-Black Sea Canal/ the year of the inauguration of the Transfăgărășan road/ the year of the appearance of the systematization of the territory.
  • Until 1981, the movie was sold in only three countries: Poland, Finland and the German Democratic Republic.
  • It was not shown in international festivals.

LINES

“I am not generous. I am the son of a peasant.” – Costea (Cornel Coman)
“Only in the fall can you listen quietly to the sea.” – Old Woman by the Sea (Beate Fredanov)
“All these reunions… too much emotional voltage for one poor man.” – Hanna (Gina Patrichi
“What could be more serious than a woman?” – Hanna (Gina Patrichi)
“Life is also a woman.” – Andrei (George Motoi)
“Doesn’t beauty give you a special feeling?” – Andrei (George Motoi)
“I’m beginning to believe that Romania is the country of exemplary men.” – Hanna (Gina Patrichi)
“True love (…) is not happiness. It’s an illness. You have to wait for it to pass, or it kills you. To defeat it, or die.” – Hanna (Gina Patrichi)

ARTICLES

This premiere is part of a national archive project supported by the Romanian National Film Centre.
Special thanks goes to the Romanian Filmmakers Union and to the Romanian Film Archive.

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