Synopsis
Foreword: “Singurătatea florilor (The Loneliness of Flowers; Mihai Constantinescu, 1976) is a kind of ‘Collateral’ avant la lettre: in place of Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise we have our very own Toma Caragiu and Radu Beligan, the car is a docile Dacia 1300 and, thank the Lord, right to the end there is never any question of anybody dying. […] The streets are empty, and the film’s interest lies, beyond the feeble plot, in this aimless drive through the neighborhoods of Bucharest: what comes into being is a proto-‘Angela merge mai departe’ (Angela Goes On; Lucian Bratu, 1981), minus the social coloring and minus the genial assurance of that film’s mise-en-scène. We pass through Colentina and through Titan, discovering a great socialist city with new districts in the thick of construction, as in a triumphalist tourist-office brochure, before which the camera cannot conceal its fascination. […] And yet one senses, beyond the cramped frame of the car, a real, new Bucharest, at that time in full expansion: had the film embraced to the full its vocation as a drifting, bloodless guided tour, as a travelogue through a capital on the edge of fiction, we would today be speaking of a defining work of this period of Ceaușescu-era zastoi – an embodiment of social withering, of stasis, in the interval between two historical events of the capital-letter kind.” (Victor Morozov, “The Hum of the Dacias”, cinepub.ro)
Directed by: Mihai Constantinescu
Script by: Octav Pancu-Iași, from an idea by Teodor Mazilu (the sketch “Premiul Nobel” / “The Nobel Prize”)
Cast: Radu Beligan (Dr. Ovidiu Pavel), Toma Caragiu (taxi driver Grigore Pascu), Colea Răutu (Dumitru Pavel, a worker, the doctor’s elder brother), George Constantin (Dr. Dănilă), Valeria Gagealov (Ema, the ex-wife), Micaela Caracaș (Mirela, the daughter), Gheorghe Visu (Gică, the young driver), Constantin Fugașin (Fănel, the former pupil), Adina Popescu (Tanța), Coca Andronescu (Melania, the dispatcher), Eugenia Bosânceanu (Dumitru’s wife), Dumitru Crăciun (Bituși, the barber), Constantin Florescu, Mircea Constantinescu Govora, Raluca Beligan
Producer: Casa de Filme 3 (Sidonia Caracaș, Radu Leșu); shot at the studios of the Bucharest Cinematographic Production Centre; distributed by Româniafilm
Cinematography by: Dumitru Costache-Fony
Edited by: Margareta Anescu
Sound: Bogdan Cavadia
Music: Temistocle Popa (performed by the “Perpetuum Mobile” Orchestra, conducted by Ion Cristinoiu)
Year: 1976 (premiere: 9 February 1976; release print completed on 26 November 1975)
Category: Feature film
Genre: Psychological drama, with elements of lyrical comedy
Duration: 81 minutes
PLOT SUMMARY
Dr. Ovidiu Pavel, physician at a large Bucharest enterprise, divorced and estranged from his daughter, receives from a grateful patient a bouquet of flowers he does not know how to accept. He gets into the taxi of Grigore Pascu – a plain, good-humoured man with a house full of children – and spends a whole day crossing the city trying to get rid of the bouquet: his ex-wife, his daughter, a betrayed friend, a former pupil and his elder brother, the worker who once sacrificed himself for him, all turn him down. The flowers keep coming back into his arms, and the drive through 1970s Bucharest becomes a lesson in a loneliness of his own making.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
“Singurătatea florilor. The screenwriter was Pancu-Iași. After a little sketch by Teodor Mazilu called ‘Premiul Nobel’ (‘The Nobel Prize’).” – Mihai Constantinescu, asked which of his films he feels most attached to; interview by Dollores Benezic, “Cum se aproba un film pe vremea lui Ceaușescu” (“How a Film Got Approved in Ceaușescu’s Time”), dollo.ro, 28 September 2018
CRITICAL REVIEWS:
“‘In Search of Lost Feeling’ could be the title of this race through the city. What matters is that the scent of the lonely flowers lingers even when the garden is overrun by prosaic epic arguments, when the film does not always find the elegant, bittersweet tone with which we admonish selfishness and rationed affection.” – Alice Mănoiu, “Cinema” magazine no. 2/1976 (fragment quoted on ro.wikipedia.org); the same review speaks of “a rather monotonous moral, heavy-handed and heavy-going,” of a “didactic gravity” (fragment quoted by Victor Morozov, cinepub.ro)
“Mihai Constantinescu responded with care. With care and with delicacy. He treated this delicate film with the attentiveness and dexterity of rose pickers.” – Eva Sîrbu, “Cinema” magazine, quoted by Victor Morozov, cinepub.ro
A “sensitive and delicate” film, “(…) with a few generous acting parts for Radu Beligan (a grumpy doctor with family complications, who one fine day receives… a bouquet of flowers he tries to get rid of as if he were carrying a hydrogen bomb), Toma Caragiu (a good-natured taxi driver, with wise humour), George Constantin.” – Călin Căliman, “Istoria filmului românesc (1897-2000)” (“A History of Romanian Film”), Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, p. 285
“A film ‘of education’ and ‘of topical life’, laudable in its intentions but modest in expression, as in the sequence of the moral lesson that the taxi driver, structurally different, administers with good-natured wisdom to the doctor, alienated by his social success.” – Tudor Caranfil, “Dicționar de filme românești” (“Dictionary of Romanian Films”), Litera Internațional, Bucharest, 2003 (one star out of five)
Caragiu’s cabbie is “a Socratic confessor of modern times (masterfully played by Toma Caragiu)”, and the film “seduces nostalgic viewers through its dialogue and a few remarkable acting performances”, even if the direction “is on the verge of mediocrity”. – Marian Rădulescu, “Terapia firescului” (“The Therapy of Naturalness”), agenda.liternet.ro
“The screenplay becomes purely illustrative, an artificial apologia for communist doctrine, saved in extremis by a few great actors. […] Singurătatea florilor functions today as a curiosity for specialists and ‘completists’ – even as it gives the lie to the nostalgic slogan about the films of yesteryear…” – Victor Morozov, “The Hum of the Dacias”, cinepub.ro
The film belongs among those that depict “a fictional universe, a parallel Romania”. – Cristian Tudor Popescu, “Filmul surd în România mută” (“The Deaf Film in Mute Romania”), Polirom, Iași, 2011, p. 196
TRIVIA:
- According to the contracts, the screenplay was written by Mihai Valter (75%) and Octav Pancu-Iași (25%), from an idea by the playwright Teodor Mazilu; only Pancu-Iași, however, is credited on screen. (Călin Stănculescu, “Scriitorii și filmul. Anii 1971-1975”, “Viața Românească” no. 7-8/2011, quoted on ro.wikipedia.org)
- Octav Pancu-Iași (1929-1975), known above all as a children’s author, died in April 1975, before the film reached the screen; his name appears in the credits framed in black, as does that of actor Mircea Constantinescu Govora. (ro.wikipedia.org)
- The film went into production in March 1975, shooting took place that summer, and the release print was completed on 26 November 1975; the second unit director was Remus Nastu, and production costs came to 2,569,000 lei. (ro.wikipedia.org, after secvente.ro)
- Toma Caragiu did not actually drive the taxi: the scenes inside the Dacia 1300 were shot on a platform. “Singurătatea florilor” is among the last films of the actor, who died in the earthquake of 4 March 1977. (Florian Olteanu, evz.ro)
- For the role of the brother, Colea Răutu accepted a brief appearance without reservations – one the director considered “one of the most accomplished” roles of the actor’s career. Raluca, Radu Beligan’s younger daughter, also appears in the film. (Doina Bunescu, “Colea Răutu”, UCIN, 2001, pp. 38-39, quoted on ro.wikipedia.org)
- 1976 was the director’s double year: “Singurătatea florilor” and “Premiera” (“The Premiere”), both with Radu Beligan and Toma Caragiu, following “Tată de duminică” (“Sunday Father”, 1975), also written by Pancu-Iași. Victor Morozov sees in the three films “a little creative factory”, with the same collaborators (Beligan, cinematographer Dumitru Costache-Fony) and kindred themes – “lonely masculinity, tormented marriage”. (cinepub.ro)
- The film was seen by 1,408,029 viewers in Romanian cinemas, according to the CNC’s count from the premiere up to 31 December 2007. (ro.wikipedia.org)
- Director Mihai Constantinescu (b. 20 August 1932, Băile Govora) – not to be confused with the singer of the same name – spent the second half of his career in television (“Lumini și umbre”, the series “Eroii nu au vârstă”); he died in July 2026, at the age of 93. (en.wikipedia.org; Victor Morozov, cinepub.ro)
MEMORABLE LINES:
- “It must be a good 15 to 20 kilometers.” / “To the Moon it’s a little further…!” / “Yes, but not by taxi!” – cabbie Pascu (Toma Caragiu) and Dr. Pavel (Radu Beligan)
- “Are carnations to judge us? Are roses to look down on us? No, it cannot be true…” – Dr. Pavel (Radu Beligan)
- “E mișto!” (“It’s cool!”) / “It’s what? I would ask you to leave that kind of language right here!” – Mirela (Micaela Caracaș) and her father (Radu Beligan)
- “Do you think there is a lonelier man in the world, a man who has done everything to remain alone?”
- “Why shouldn’t I drink coffee? What could happen? That I die sooner than I should?… No great loss.”
- “When something isn’t working behind you, don’t go too fast ahead.”
- “Maybe so, but you should know I wouldn’t trade places with you. You, though, make a mockery of other people’s lives.”
ARTICLES:
- “The Hum of the Dacias” (“Zumzetul Daciilor”), by Victor Morozov – cinepub.ro (premiere newsletter)
- “Terapia firescului – Singurătatea florilor” (“The Therapy of Naturalness”), by Marian Rădulescu (April 2009) – agenda.liternet.ro
- “Gânduri pe marginea unui anumit tip de film – Singurătatea florilor” (“Thoughts on a Certain Type of Film”), by Marian Rădulescu (September 2011) – agenda.liternet.ro
- “Cum se aproba un film pe vremea lui Ceaușescu” (“How a Film Got Approved in Ceaușescu’s Time”) – interview with director Mihai Constantinescu, by Dollores Benezic (2018) – dollo.ro
- “Taximetriștii, imortalizați pe marele ecran de monștri sacri” (“Taxi Drivers Immortalised on the Big Screen by Sacred Monsters”), by Florian Olteanu (2024) – evz.ro
- Alice Mănoiu – review in “Cinema” magazine no. 2/1976 (print)
- Călin Căliman – “Istoria filmului românesc (1897-2000)”, Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, 2000, p. 285 (print)
- Tudor Caranfil – “Dicționar de filme românești”, Litera Internațional, 2003 (print)
- Cristian Tudor Popescu – “Filmul surd în România mută”, Polirom, 2011, p. 196 (print)
- Singurătatea florilor – ro.wikipedia.org
- Singurătatea florilor – cinemagia.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.
