In post-communist Romania young dropout-student Ovidiu's family is struggling to make ends meet by operating a small grocery store right out of their derelict tower block apartment. All he can hope for in this rather dismal small town is to buy someday a small kiosk for himself. The opportunity to considerably further his plan seems to arise when Ivanov, the local shady businessman, offers to pay a fabulous sum to get a parcel delivered to Bucharest, the Romanian Capital.
This attempt at a Romanian road movie goes to great lengths to depict the narrow world of its characters. Every detail of their departure, conversations etc. is painstakingly rendered, causing the film to lose momentum at times. However, the details of how they talk and interact with each other quite realistically reflect their attitude in life, their hopes or lack thereof, and their feelings towards each other. This has been a rare quality in Romanian films so far, where usually you have an improbable story and/or unnaturally behaving characters (few exceptions notwithstanding). I won't bother with the poor production (bad sync, faded colours, overpowering ambient noise) because that's simply not the point with this film. Among the undeniable qualities of Cristi Puiu's debut are the naturalistic depiction of everyday life and the hopelessness of it, the natural acting and language of the characters (which also makes any attempt at a faithful translation quite futile). Despite the lagging story the film accurately captures the everyday struggle and trouble of life in post-communist Eastern Europe. Definitely worth watching if you can adjust to the slow pace.
