THE DOWRY (1973) – drama film online

Directed by: Letiția Popa
Script by: Paul Everac (after the play of the same name, originally a radio play)
Cast: Victor Rebengiuc, Margareta Pogonat, Sanda Toma, Sebastian Radovici, Mircea Bașta, Ioana Ciomârtan, Nicolae Ifrim, Ion Anghel, Geta Măruță, Dinu Ianculescu, Liana Dan, Dorin Dron, Eftimie Popovici, Maria Munteanu, Valeriu Trancea, Adriana Georgescu, Virgil Constantinescu, Alexandru Vasiliu, Florin Stroe, Theo Partisch, Paul Nadolschi, Mircea Cosma
Producer: The “București” Cinema Studio (production manager: Mircea Mohor); the initial version was produced by TVR
Cinematography by: Nicu Stan, Sabin Devderea
Edited by: Doina Cruceru, George Miclea, Lucia Anton
Sound: Ileana Galbură, Radu Boeriu
Music: George Popescu, Vasile Vasilache
Costumes: Doina Levința
Year: 1973
Category: Feature film
Genre: Drama
Duration: 101 minutes

PLOT SUMMARY

Doru Șerban, a Bucharest engineer who worked his way up from village life, and Lola, an aspiring actress with a passion for consignment-shop antiques, form a couple whose standard of living is suspiciously comfortable. When Doru is summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office over his wife’s shady dealings – which, inexplicably, he decides to cover up -, the illusion of domestic happiness begins to unravel. At the same time, Livia reappears in the capital: the great love of his youth, the woman who stayed on the construction site in Pitești and kept all her promises. Between the investigation and the memories, each character’s “dowry” – a moral one, not a material one – is called to account.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“For him, his wife, Lola, is an illusion, an illusion that they both end up paying for. The setting that symbolizes the illusion is the Serban`s homeplace, a theatrical setting, in which nothing, not even the objects, belong to them. No matter how much I tried to get them out of there, to move them to other environments, I couldn’t. They are the prisoners of this setting.” – Letiția Popa, Cinema magazine no. 7/July 1972

“But this way, working on the film, I have the immense joy of polishing something that was done somewhat in haste. Because, in television, the whole production was shot in 12 days and, in fact, excessive polishing didn’t even have a point, since the small screen has its limits.” – Letiția Popa, interview in “Cinema” magazine, July 1972, quoted by Călin Boto on cinepub.ro

AWARDS

• 1973 – ACIN Awards – Award for Female Performance (Margareta Pogonat)
• 1973 – ACIN Awards – Image Award (Nicu Stan)
• 1974 – Sofia Festival – Award for Best Director

AWARDS

• 1974 – Sofia International Film Festival

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

“Finally, there are not a few moments in “The Dowry” in which Paul Everac contradicts the biased ideea of incompatibility between theater and cinema. The apparent excess of words is compensated by a special technique of verbal persuasion that does not give the partner time to intervene, nor the viewer get bored.” – Valerian Sava, Cinema 10/1972 magazine

“A valuable film that urges the viewer towards introspection and a search of their own” – remarkable also for “the extraordinary topicality of the screenplay”, half a century after the premiere. – Ovidiu Pop, blogdefilm.ro

“Paul Everac’s play, filmed by Letitia Popa, achieves convincing portraits of two women. Two ways of thinking about existence, happiness. The formula of the ribbon-woman, fragile and insidious, selfish and grasping, brilliantly nuanced by Sanda Toma. Its opposite, only rigor and intransigence, generosity and lack of coquetry up to defeminization, the heroine of Margareta Pogonat” – Alice Mănoiu, “The Condition of Women in Romanian Film” in Cinema Magazine, no. 4/1976

“Letiția Popa has understood one essential thing, namely that the small screen is still a screen. And she does not make the mistake of ‘manufacturing’ a piece of filmed theatre. Letiția Popa MAKES CINEMA! Which means that certain something that adds 24 extra beats to our pulse.” – Aurel Mihailopol, on-set report, “Cinema” magazine no. 4/1972, quoted by Călin Boto on cinepub.ro

“Popa’s concept for Everac’s contemporary drama is a clean, supple mise-en-scène, in sharp, elegant black and white, whose units of measure are the interior, the portrait and the linear camera movement.” – Călin Boto, cinepub.ro

TRIVIA:

• “Zestrea” exists in two versions: the one produced by TVR (1972) and the remake for the big screen, at the “București” Cinema Studio (1973) – Letiția Popa’s feature debut, a rare female presence in the Romanian cinema of the era.
• Highly respected in her day, Letiția Popa worked in TV theatre with a veritable who’s who of Romanian actors, from Victor Rebengiuc and Toma Caragiu to Mariana Mihuț, Irina Petrescu, Draga Olteanu, Mircea Diaconu and Tora Vasilescu.
• After only two features – “Zestrea” and “Cine mă strigă?” (1980) -, the director emigrated to the United States, where she worked in film production and theatre directing; her televised theatre work remains largely forgotten in the TVR archive.
• She was married to the Californian painter (of Mexican origin) Enrique Marquez, with whom she had a son, Teodor (Ted) Micu
• Margareta Pogonat plays here “in her most ambitious period”, right after Lucian Bratu’s “Drum în penumbră”.
• The sets and costumes bear the signature of Doina Levintza and Guță Știrbu.

ARTICLES:

• „Ultimul tur de manivelă. Zestrea”, interview with Eva Haraș, Cinema magazine no. 7/1972 (print)
• Reportajul lui Aurel Mihailopol – „Cinema” magazine no. 4/1972 (print)
• “Romanian Theatre and Film: Dowry (1973), – agerpres.ro
• „Eu, debutantă?”, interview with Val.S.Deleanu in Cinema no. 10 (print)
• „Letiția Popa” – dmtr.ro
• „Condiția femeii în filmul românesc”, Alice Mănoiu in Cinema Magazine, no 4/1976 (print)
• „Zestrea” – film review – aarc.ro
• „Zestrea (Letiția Popa, 1972)”, by Ovidiu Pop – blogdefilm.ro
• „Romanian theatre and films: «Zestrea» (1973)” – agerpres.ro
• “Letiția Popa’s Steady Hand” (“Mâna sigură a Letiției Popa”), by Călin Boto – cinepub.ro (premiere newsletter)

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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