I only saw this movie this week, which could mean about twenty years late. But no. Not too late. I would say, just in time. It brings back the time, when I went to school. It brings back exactly the way it happened. Yes, it was hard, sometimes brutal, sometimes grotesque. But those years were so beautiful for so many of us. And this movie manages to show us all the good things, but none of the bad ones we remember from that time. Yes, the acts seem pale or even fake sometimes. But only we know, why it does. We know and we feel it. And we are grateful to the makers of this movie. Most of those who will read these words have no idea, what it took to make a movie like this in the late eighties in Romania. One risked not only his/her career, but the very existence. People were actually imprisoned for not giving up artistic ideals. Yet, this movie works! But only for those, who had to "privilege" to grow up during the communist era in eastern Europe. You can find breath-taking sights with a Lonely Planet book in your pocket, but it takes years of day-to-day life among the locals, to start understanding what you see. The same way, one would have to go back in time, go back to Romania, to understand, to feel this movie.
