METRONOM (2022) – drama film online

Directed by: Alexandru Belc
Script: Alexandru Belc
Cast: Mara Bugarin, Șerban Lazarovici, Vlad Ivanov, Mara Vicol, Mihai Călin, Andreea Bibiri, Alina Brezunțeanu, Mihnea Moldoveanu, Andrei Miercure, Măriuca Bosnea, Eduard Chimac, Tiberiu Zavelea, Claudia Soare, Briana Macovei, Pamela Iobaji, Ana Bodea, Alin Oprea, Alexandru Conovaru, Horațiu Bob, Alexandru Nedelcu, Daniel Tomescu
Producer: Strada Film Internațional, Midralgar Franța, Chainsaw Europe
Cinematography by: Tudor Vladimir Panduru
Edited by: Patricia Chelaru
Sound: Julien Blasco
Music: Radio Free Europe, Metronom Show The Beatles Kingdom 1970, Metronom Show Jim Morrison 1972, Voice Cornel Chiriac
Year: 2022
Category: Feature film
Genre:  Drama
Duration: 101 minutes

481,028 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

While Țiriac and Năstase are playing in the Davis Cup Final against the USA in 1972, two high school students fall in love and write letters to the “Metronom” program on Free Europe. When he gets the go-ahead to leave the country for good with his family, they know they have to split up, but they didn’t expect their last days together to become decisive for their whole lives.

AWARDS:

• 2022 – Cannes, “Un Certain Regard” section – Directing Award (Alexandru Belc)
• 2023 – Gopo – Best Product Design Award (Bogdan Ionescu)
• 2023 – Gopo – Award for hairstyling and makeup (Irina Iancius, Marie-Pierre Hattabi)
• 2023 – Gopo – Best Costume Design Award (Ioana Covalciuc)
• 2023 – Gopo – Best Cinematography Award (Tudor Vladimir Panduru)
• 2023 – Gopo – RSC Award (Tudor Vladimir Panduru)

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“It’s a well-documented movie, especially the details and including the set design. It’s very well anchored in important historical details, and I found myself in these details” – Irina Margareta Nistor, in “Free Europe”

“Vlad Ivanov’s character is from another paradigm. Although he has acted between extremes before, Ivanov drags after him the charge of “432”, which, meta-textually speaking, is to the advantage of the movie, because it makes us think that, on the stage of history, evil is often perpetuated by typical characters.” – Iulia Blaga, libertatea.ro

“An air as if from “Alien” hovers over the last scene that symmetrically closes the movie in the same place, the esplanade in front of the Military Academy: you don’t know how many of the teenagers in the frame haven’t already installed and are not already growing the monster of betrayal and compromise. The innocence of the first scenes of the movie is gone.” – Iulia Blaga, libertatea.ro

“Leaving aside the fact that some of the actors were allowed by the director to keep their hair much too rich in comparison with the directives and precious indications of the time, the reconstruction is, in my opinion, flawless. Ioana Covalcic’s decor is exemplary, the interior design of the 1972 apartments is reconstructed as if by the book, as if by the book are the dances (though perhaps too long), the authenticity of which Paul Dunca has taken care of.” – Mircea Morariu, contributors.ro

“This return to a regime of terror borrowed from the arsenal of Stalinism was tacitly and resignedly accepted by the adults (the behavior of Ana’s parents, played very well by Andreea Bibiri and Mihai Călin, is significant), and this acceptance was beginning to take root in the minds of young people. The character played by Mara Vicol’s behavior is relevant. Sorin comes to what today we call a party convinced that he has to respect his commitment because otherwise he could face consequences. His passport could be revoked. The right to leave the country permanently. Ana has her little revolt. Then she gives in. The two are excellently played by Șerban Lazarovici and Mara Bugarin.” – Mircea Morariu, contributors.ro

“Belc’s two great cinematic milestones are Radu Jude’s “Uppercase Print”, from which he borrowed the young actor Șerban Lazarovici, and Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”, from which Ivanov and those much-studied deadbeats come. (As for the moments of grace with young people dancing, these were anticipated by Andrei Ujică in “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu”, where the play was “I Fought the Law, and the Law Won”, and the historical moment illustrated was also that of the imminent tightening of the screw).” – Andrei Gorzo, andreigorzoblog.wordpress.ro

“Metronom is a coming-of-age movie in which what happens to the protagonist is programmed to happen to her in the interest of a parable. By working her up in order to recruit her, the security officer Ivanov shows her how the closed world in which she will have to spend the rest of her life (well, until ’89) will work. The loss of innocence basically comes with a label that Belc wrote Quod erat demonstrandum.” – Andrei Gorzo, andreigorzoblog.wordpress.com

“Metronom is a somewhat more contradictory movie than it seems: if the second half is a bit of anti-communist blabber that works by punishing its own characters, the beginning brings its rigorous opposite – a series of seductive vignettes, in which the chrome bumper of an old car and the records played on the pick-up truck work together in the name of an immersive experience in the seventeenth-century past, with its illusory hints of freedom. Belc and scenographer Bogdan Ionescu show attention to the looks of the period” – Victor Morozov, scene 9

“Ana is the only character driven by a certain impetuous urge for justice, which, however, she gives up rather easily. The fight for freedom seems like a mirage, and the fighter an undead when all around there is only silence and unanimous obedience.” – Elena Călinoiu, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• With the movie “Metronom”, Alexandru Belc made his debut in feature-length fiction, after documentaries such as “March 8” in 2012 and “Cinema, mon amour” in 2015.
• Born in 1980, Alexandru Belc studied film directing at UNATC, Bucharest, but also has a master’s degree in political science from the University of Bucharest.
• Discussing the theme of “Metronom”, the director says it is a movie about love, not communism.
• The original intention was that the movie would become a documentary about Cornel Chiriac (critic, musician and jazz music enthusiast, founder of the European Jazz Federation) and his legendary show, “Metronom”, which he presented on Free Europe from June 1969 until March 1975, when he was assassinated in Munich. “The point at which I decided to write a fictional screenplay was when I discovered the stories of the people who listened to him and responded in one way or another to it. All these stories had one thing in common – that generation’s thirst for freedom. That’s when I decided to fictionalize these document-testimonies, to build a universal story over which to come up with the historical background.” (A.B.)
• The radio program “Metronom” was banned by the communist censors in 1968, the year of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, after Cornel Chiriac broadcast a folk song by Mircea Florian, which was a veiled protest against the forceful intervention against the Prague Spring.
• The challenge of recalling the past in images was a tough one for the filmmaker, given the constant urban changes. For this reason, he chose not to shoot much outdoors. “There’s no more cubic stone. Spain Square still has a bit of cubic stone. We didn’t go into the socialist area, the new blocks, because they don’t look like they did then either. If you look at the archive you’ll see that Bucharest neighborhoods look completely different. The graffiti and the drawings I erased them all in the graphics.” (A.B.)
• The story in the movie is inspired by many real cases. “People were sending letters, there were bags of letters to Free Europe. I know very concrete cases, people I talked to, students or high school students. For example, the case of Radu Nicolescu. He answered a contest, he guessed all the songs in the top 10 or top 5 of the “Metronom” and was rewarded with three records. Obviously the Security got annoyed and the agents broke in when his parents weren’t home. They invited him nicely to their headquarters every day for a week.” (A.B.)

LINES:

“If it wasn’t for this departure, you’d be wandering through the Village Museum.” – Roxana (Mara Vicol)
“If you think he’s going to marry you just because you became pregnant, you’re sadly mistaken. Those times are gone.” – Roxana (Mara Vicol)
“I need to know if he loves me. Do you understand?” – Ana (Mara Bugarin)
“You only listen to Jimi Hendrix?” – Tibi (Tiberiu Zavelea)
“It’s not my fault for what is happening to us.” – Ana (Mara Bugarin)
“Look, Ispas! Led Zeppelin! You never heard of such a thing.” – Dinu (Alexandru Conovaru)
“Only tea is drunk at a tea dance.” – Dinu (Alexandru Conovaru)
“You will write a simple statement. The undersigned, first name, surname, date of birth (…) you arrived at the home of Paraschiv Roxana. There (…) you listened to the radio program Metronom, on Radio Free Europe.” – Dinu (Alexandru Conovaru)
“I am interested in what you talked about, the plans you made, everything. Is that understood?” – Dinu (Alexandru Conovaru)
“I don’t want to damage anyone.” – Ana (Mara Bugarin)
“The damage is already done, miss.” – Biriș (Vlad Ivanov)
“Failure to comply with the legal provisions constitutes a particularly serious offense and is punishable under criminal law.” – Biriș (Vlad Ivanov)
“You don’t like that we offer you education, school, that we put everything on a platter, no. Your business. You’re of age, you answer for your actions.” – Biries (Vlad Ivanov)
“It’s prison, Ana, understand?” – Ana’s father (Mihai Călin)
“You’ve been watched for months. You’ve done something stupid. It’s this new law and they can’t wait to set an example.” – Ana’s father
“They knew you listened to Radio Free Europe, that you wrote letters, they knew everything.” – Ana’s father
“Yes. I took the letter to the Security.” – Sorin (Șerban Lazarovici)

ARTICLES:

• “Metronom”, Alexandru Belc’s movie about a program on Radio Free Europe, awarded at Cannes – romania.europalibera.org
• Alexandru Belc: “Metronom is a love movie, about love. It’s not a movie about communism – euronews.ro
• “I made Metronom for young people born in democracy. Interview with Alexandru Belc – observatorcultural.co.uk
• The story of the Cannes award-winning movie Metronom. Director Alexandru Belc: “For me, Radio Free Europe is the symbol of freedom” – romania.europalibera.org
• Correspondence from Cannes: Alexandru Belc’s “Metronom” is a kind of “Alien” in which the monster of compromise attacks everyone – libertatea.ro
• Two Romanian films, “Metronom” by Alexandru Belc and “R.M.N.” by Cristian Mungiu, in the selection of the Goteborg Film Festival – g4media.ro
• Metronom director, Cannes award-winning film: ‘I’d be happy to provoke debates about the Security in the 70s and where things could go with national security laws’ – hotnews.ro
• Director Alexandru Belc: “‘Metronom’ is a movie for our parents and for the generation of the 2000s” – adevarul.ro
• “Metronom”, by Alexandru Belc, awarded for directing in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival – curatorial.ro
• Revisiting “Metronom” – contributors.ro
• The past is another country: “Metronom” and “For me you are Ceausescu” – andreigorzoblog.wordpress.com

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