Transylvania (2006)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Tony Gatlif

Writer:

Tony Gatlif (writer)

Release Date:

4 October 2006 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Zingarina arrives in Transylavania, accompanied by her close friend Marie and her guide and interpreter Luminitsa...

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Gypsy | Train | Folk Music | Bear

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Asia Argento	...	Zingarina
Amira Casar	...	Marie
Birol Ünel	...	Tchangalo
Alexandra Beaujard	...	Luminitsa
Marco Castoldi	...	Milan Agustin
Bea Pálya	...	La chanteuse du cabaret (as Beata Palya)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marina Boldizsac	...	La chanteuse ukrainenne
Rares Budelaina	...	Le jeune musicien
Nicolae Cristache	...	Le passeur
Florin Estefan	...	Le chanteur d'opéra
Gabor	...	Gabor, le paysan au traîneau
Simion Lupu	...	Le chanteur d'opéra
Cornel Reileanu	...	Le bedeau
Mariana Rus	...	Vandana
Anton Tauf	...	Le pope

Runtime:

France:103 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | Romanian | English | Hungarian | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | France:U | Australia:M | Ireland:15A | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Sighet, Maramures, Romania

Company:

Princes Films

Soundtrack:

Le souffle

Outdated, tendentious and senseless

I live in Transylvania, so I was very interested in watching this movie. Now I'm sorry for wasting my time.

Very poor plot. A woman (Zingarina) comes to Romania looking for his former lover (Milan) but she finds another one (Tchangalo) to spend her life with. That's all. 5 minutes are more than sufficient for this story.

Anyway, there's no reason for Zingarina to join Tchangalo. She just does it. But actually nothing makes any sense in this movie.

No reason for anyone's behavior - unless Tony Gatlif (writer & director) wanted to offend the spectators' intellect.

No reason for so much music - unless T.G. wanted to accomplish a folk music compilation and inserted some playing between videos.

No reason for using so many languages (Romanian, Hungarian, Romales, Ukrainean, German, French, English and Italian), most of them spoken by the same people.

No reason for using a language or another in a particular situation: sometimes 2 persons talk to each other using everyone another language; Milan uses Romanian when talking to Zingarina, yet she doesn't understand Romanian; Zingarina is the only one using Italian; people use Romanian to Tchangalo, but this one uses only other languages; Tchangalo speaks French but he uses English when talking to Zingarina and so on.

Most of all, I see absolutely no reason for naming this movie "Transylvania". Only the music and the speech are specific to this land, but I don't think the title may be chosen according to them. It's like using the title "USA" for any movie with its story placed in USA.

Moreover, this movie is filled with a lot of unreal situations. For example, don't trust anything that happens in a restaurant or bar, you will never see that in real Transylvania. Don't trust anything about the church and the priest, especially the scene with the priest imprecating Tchangalo. Don't believe many other things.

The entire movie is nothing but a collection of stereotypes about Transylvania/Romania. This kind of movies used to be the focus of Romanian cinema about 15 years ago. I cannot understand how a French director could make such a movie in 2006.

And the playing is so unnatural that I suspect there was no casting.