Closer to the Moon by Nae Carenfil
Have you heard the one about the band of Jewish intellectuals that pulled off one of the biggest armored car heists in European history by pretending to shoot a movie? No, me neither, but if you lived in Romania in 1960, there’s a good chance you were force-fed a propaganda film recreating the caper. It was no mere re-enactment. It was a government-run production, with many notes of bigotry added, and the actors were the real-life suspects – the Ioanid gang – all but one of whom were later executed by the state. What’s ironic is that the group, if you believe this film, committed the crime not out of greed, but to shatter the illusion of a communist utopia. If everyone saw that people were unhappy enough under communism to covet money, the thinking went, maybe they’d see through the other lies their government had been feeding them. Closer to the Moon suggests that this strangely theoretical – but also action-packed – subversion may have helped instigate the resistance to the Ceauşescu regime.
In Bucharest, in 1959, four men and a woman who believe themselves to be some sort of Robin Hood, put into practice an ingenious heist into a branch of the National Bank of Romania, by pretending to be shooting a film. It does not take the Romanian authorities too long before they identify and arrest the culprits. They are five Communist Party members, disillusioned with the transformations brought on Romania by the communist regime and to which themselves have sadly contributed. Sentenced to death, while awaiting execution, they are forced by the Security to reenact the whole heist for a propagandist film. The five try to profit from this paradoxical situation to enjoy, albeit transiently, freedom and small privileges, such as caviar they eat in one scene filmed in a restaurant.
There are a lot of touching moments in this film, and it is to writer-director Nae Caranfil’s credit that he is able to tease out the logic in this mostly enjoyable, if a little all-over-the-place, dark comedy. Made at a cost of $5m, it is the most expensive Romanian film production, and a world away from the talk-heavy, deeply deadpan slow-burners such as Beyond the Hills or The Death of Mr Lazarescu of the Romanian new wave. We have got British and American actors Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong and Harry Lloyd all speaking English. Lloyd, likely best remembered for his cruel metallurgical death on Game of Thrones’ first season, is a wide-eyed kid who stumbles upon the initial heist. Falling for the ruse that the robbers are making a film, the kid gets jazzed by cameras and lights, and decides to do entry-level work in the moviemaking industry. Through an unlikely turn of events, he ends up overseeing the recreation of the robbery and, naturally, begins a dangerous love affair with one of its leaders.
A haunting manner on the leading characters’ part to mock at and protest against their contemporary political regime.
Teacher Doroftei Elena Simona, Romania