REPEATED WEDDING (1985) – comedy film online

Directed by: Virgil Calotescu
Script: Francisc Munteanu
Cast: Mircea Diaconu, Catrinel Dumitrescu, Draga Olteanu-Matei, Octavian Cotescu, Mitică Popescu, Rodica Mandache, Radu Gheorghe, Costel Constantin, Vasile Nițulescu, Nae Lăzărescu, Mariana Calotescu, Geo Saizescu, Rodica Popescu Bitănescu, Ernest Maftei, Aurel Giurumia, Julieta Strâmbeanu, Dumitru Rucăreanu
Producer: Ion Floroiu, Bogdan Burileanu
Cinematography by: Valentin Ducaru
Edited by: Eugenia Naghi
Sound: Horea Murgu
Music: Temistocle Popa
Year: 1985
Category: Feature film
Genre: Comedy
Duration: 79 minutes

162,539 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

After a marriage and a turbulent divorce (in Bucharest Identity Card), Silvia and Radu each go their separate ways, losing all contact with one another. Since she couldn’t get a job in Bucharest, Silvia decides to take the position assigned to her in Bolintin, as an agricultural engineer. Meanwhile, Radu, her former “husband,” graduates from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and is also sent to Bolintin, following an international career as a handball player. There, the two realize that their marriage was more than just a formality — they are truly in love with each other.

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“A victim of a marriage of convenience, the divorced couple from Bucharest Identity Card meet again by chance, end up staying in the same room — again by chance — and, quite accidentally, form a model family in the most accidental way possible. Continuing the previous success, the main characters find nothing better to do than to remarry, as the title promises. The actors are placed once more in the situations from the previous film, doing exactly what the audience expects of them, on a lively yet superficial storyline, reminiscent of a collage of TV sketches. Flashback sequence: a summary of the first part, in the prologue, treated in the style of a silent comedy.” – Tudor Caranfil

“Those who saw Mircea Diaconu and Catrinel Dumitrescu, Draga Olteanu-Matei and Octavian Cotescu, Rodica Mandache and Constantin Diplan (and others) in Bucharest Identity Card surely wanted to see them once again in Marriage for Repeat Viewing. And here they are, unchanged — the team has even grown: with a seraphic Radu Gheorghe as a music teacher in ‘Bolentin’, a Mitică Popescu as an uncle locked in his own dignity as if in armor, a Rodica Mandache autrement coiffée! — literally and figuratively — as the little grand mistress of matrimonial schemes, a determined and principled mayor played by Mariana Cercel, and an Aurel Giurumia as the father eager to marry off his daughter. In short: actors the audience loves, and from whom they expect nothing less than to be delighted. The actors — placed in situations and brought to life by the screenwriter and director — respond wholeheartedly to these expectations. Draga Olteanu-Matei baking sweet bread with a hat on her head, or swinging a sledgehammer to knock down a wall between two doors; Mitică Popescu, dignified yet half-asleep, carrying a jar of pickles or sneaking into bed in a ruffled nightshirt; Octavian Cotescu gently crocheting (a painful image for us, since that’s how the great actor remains with us — on film); Radu Gheorghe conducting an unwritten concert in front of an imaginary orchestra; Rodica Mandache candidly chirping her ‘information’ from one ear to another — these are images that make audiences laugh heartily and happily.” – Eva Sîrbu, Cinema magazine, no. 11, November 1985

“Beyond the ‘phenomenon’, what stayed with me was the avant-generic recap of the first part, conceived and executed in the manner of a silent comedy — and, above all, the portrait of Bucharest, crafted with all the love and skill of a passionate documentarian, which Virgil Calotescu was — and, as this film proves, remains. The modern Bucharest, charged with the nostalgic fragrance of the past by Luigi Ionescu’s trembling, heartfelt song My Love from Bucharest, becomes the city of yesterday, today, and forever.” – Eva Sîrbu, Cinema magazine, no. 11, November 1985

“Without reaching the popularity of Uncle Marin the Billionaire (1979) — Sergiu Nicolaescu’s ‘epochal’ comedy — Virgil Calotescu’s Bucharest Identity Card (1982) and its sequel Repeated Wedding (1985), written by Francisc Munteanu — best known as the author of the novels Pistruiatul and The Princess of Șega, both adapted for the screen — were major comedies of the so-called Golden Era and still nourish the nostalgia of an entire generation. Seen today, they seem to breathe the air of a lost innocence — of a better, more genuine world, albeit an outdated one — a collectivist Arcadia inhabited by people freed from the burden of existential choices, which were uniformly resolved through the intervention of an all-powerful political will. It is a world untouched by the anxieties of modern corporate competition, framed instead within the modest, predictable, and calm order of an equal life.” – Angelo Mitchevici, cinepub.ro

“In Calotescu’s two films, comedy operates as a screen — a means of softening the image of the dictatorial state and its repressive institutions, of taming an abnormality that had become the norm. Within the horizon of propaganda, this too was an objective: normalization through comedy — through an external problematization of the formal aspects of utterly absurd or abusive situations, while carefully avoiding the substance of the issue, which could easily turn into the dramatic or even the tragic. Such a shift, from the comic to the absurdly tragic, is precisely what happens in Lucian Pintilie’s Reenactment (1971) or in Dan Pița’s Sand Cliffs (1983). This is why the latter films were withdrawn from circulation, while the lighter, conventional comedies — superficial yet tactful in their handling of delicate themes — were tolerated, even encouraged, for their so-called ‘educational’ value.” – Angelo Mitchevici, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• The film was shot at the studios of the Cinematographic Production Center in Bucharest.
• The assistant director was Mariana Calotescu, the wife of director Virgil Calotescu, and the combined shots cinematographer was Nora Irimescu.
• The music editor was Valentin Curocichin.
• The music was performed by the Jazz Orchestra of the Romanian Radio and Television, conducted by Cornel Popescu. The song “Where Are You, My Love from Bucharest?” („Unde ești, draga mea din București?”) is performed by Luigi Ionescu.
• The film was a major box office success, with 3,530,113 viewers in Romanian cinemas, according to data compiled by the National Center of Cinematography for all domestic releases up to December 31, 2007.
• Filming took place in one of the old houses in Călărași, located on the banks of the Borcea River — a remarkable architectural structure built like a small fortress and once belonging to a wealthy family. The house, owned by Nicolae Nicolescu and situated near the former Victoria Cinema, was demolished shortly after filming, during the communist urban restructuring, and can now only be admired in the film.
• Another shooting location was Navrom Park, near the Central Park area, where the house scenes were filmed.
• Production was not without its mishaps. Actor Mitică Popescu recalled with amusement how he ended up playing Mitică, the brother of Eleonora’s husband and a former school superintendent:
• “Mr. Octavian Cotescu was ill and couldn’t come to the shoot, so director Virgil Calotescu asked if I was available and suggested I become Costică’s ‘brother’ — Cotescu’s character. We had performed together in A Stormy Night, and I think Calotescu remembered seeing us on stage. I had some funny moments on set. Everyone laughed when I grabbed the hammer to help Draga Olteanu-Matei break the wall between the two rooms — and again when I ‘dropped’ the jar of pickles. We were filming at Gara Obor, and I remember that jar was really heavy. I told them we had to find a way for me to get rid of it — and we did”, he recalled.
• Actor Radu Gheorghe, who played the music teacher, amazed the crew with his violin playing: “All the filming days were wonderful — and so was that time of life. I joined the cast in this second film of the series, and when I started playing the violin, the whole crew gathered to listen. They didn’t know I had musical training. During breaks, everyone waited for my musical jokes. The regret was the director’s — that he didn’t have room to include those moments in the film.”
• He almost lost his car during one of the filming days: “I asked the director to schedule me for the afternoon because I had theatre rehearsals and promised to come in my own car. We were filming outside Bucharest, somewhere along the Dâmbovița River. I arrived — but on the wrong bank. We could see each other and shouted across the water. I would’ve had to drive 20 kilometers around, but I was already late. A tractor driver told me there was a shallow crossing 500 meters away. I had a Dacia 1300, and he warned me it might be risky. I rolled up my pants, checked the depth — about knee-high — and thought, no problem, I’ll cross. But there was gravel underneath. The car sank, the engine stopped, and when I opened the doors, the water rushed through like a dam. I was afraid it would tip over. I shouted for the tractor driver, but he wouldn’t come. Then the film crew arrived — they pulled the car out and spent hours drying the engine so I could get home,” he laughed.
• Actress Catrinel Dumitrescu recalled in an interview for Adevărul Magazine: “Luck brought me once again near my teacher, Octavian Cotescu. I had been his partner — still a student — in a play at Bulandra Theatre, his ‘daughter’ in Ion, but before all that, I was a fascinated spectator of the immense humanity he brought to his comic characters. He mastered emotions in a way that made you laugh out loud one moment and have tears in your eyes the next. As for dear Draga Olteanu-Matei — when she acted, you felt she was breaking the dams of a torrent she carried in her heart. Beside them, I felt better, safer — their acting was a lesson in both professionalism and kindness.”

LINES:

• “You have to quit smoking.” – Veterinary doctor Radu Petrescu (Mircea Diaconu)
• “Costică, where are you hiding, Costică?! Come here when I tell you to!” – Eleonora, Silvia’s mother (Draga Olteanu-Matei)
• “Welcome to your new post, comrade veterinary doctor!” – Silvia (Catrinel Dumitrescu)
• “The last time I proposed to you, you said you didn’t have the 10,000. Do you have them now?” – Veterinary doctor Radu Petrescu (Mircea Diaconu)
• “I’m drawn to Sirius. The star in the Big Dipper. You don’t really know much about stars.” – Veterinary doctor Radu Petrescu (Mircea Diaconu)
• “You’ve got this little flaw, otherwise you’d make a very good wife. As you are, chubby as ever…” – Silvia (Catrinel Dumitrescu)
• “I can’t leave with you. I can’t go because I haven’t finished the lace yet, and I can’t show up in front of the girl with the lace unfinished.” – Costică, Silvia’s father (Octavian Cotescu)
• “Why should I hide the cow? Let the dowry be out in the open!” – Ganea (Aurel Giurumia)
• “We’ve got a color TV too. But we’ve lent it to some relatives.” – Ganea (Aurel Giurumia)
• “For the little one… the baby. Name him Costică!” – Eleonora, Silvia’s mother (Draga Olteanu-Matei)
• “You can’t work at a high school without having some stature!” – Mitică, Costică’s brother (Mitică Popescu)
• “Two beers. And some mici (grilled sausages).” – Mitică, Costică’s brother (Mitică Popescu)
• “Haven’t you already been married once?” – Mitică, Costică’s brother (Mitică Popescu)
• “Yes, but I liked it. I want to do it again.” – Veterinary doctor Radu Petrescu (Mircea Diaconu)

ARTICLES:

• Behind the scenes of the film “Repeated Wedding” – tvr.ro
• The strangest houses in Romania: the beautiful house on the banks of the Borcea River, where “Repeated Wedding” was filmed, was demolished by the communist bulldozers – adevarul.ro
• Behind the scenes of the film “Repeated Wedding” – evz.ro
• “Marriage Rehearsal”, on TVR1 – tvr.ro
• Film review: “Repeated Wedding”, by Eva Sîrbu – aarc.ro
• Rodica Mandache to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Gopo Awards – revistascena.ro

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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