The Way I Spent the End of the World (2006)
"Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" (original title)

In communist era Romania, people live with hope for a new life of freedom.

Director:

Catalin Mitulescu

Writers:

Catalin Mitulescu, Andreea Valean,

Stars:

Dorotheea Petre, Timotei Duma, Anca Ahrfrescu

3 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Dorotheea Petre	...	Eva Matei - a seventeen-year-old girl
Timotei Duma	...	Lalalilu 'Lali' Matei - Eva's little brother
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anca Ahrfrescu	...	Soçia lui Nucu
Ioan Albu
Sergiu Anghel	...	The headmaster
Monalisa Basarab	...	Professorà cor
Ionut Becheru	...	Alexandru 'Alex' 'Vomicã' - a high school student in love with Eva
Adrian Bulboaca	...	The second guitarist
Ion Carangea
Jean Constantin	...	Uncle Floricã
Flaviu Crisan	...	Securitat policeman
Radu Câmpean	...	The soloist
Mircea Diaconu	...	Grigore Matei - Eva and Lali's father
Sorin Dinculescu	...	Profesonul panait
Bogdan Dumitrache	...	The doctor

Storyline

Bucharest 1989 - the last year of Ceausescu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7 year old brother, Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee and Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei, and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu becomes convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So with his friends from school he devises a plan to kill the dictator.

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Plot Keywords:

romania | male rear nudity | communist indoctrination | assassination plot | fall of communism | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [ro]

Country:

Romania France

Language:

Romanian

Release Date:

30 August 2006 (France)

Also Known As:

The Way I Spent the End of the World

Filming Locations:

Bucharest, Romania

Box Office

Budget:

€1,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Acht Frankfurt, Briarcliff Films, Canal+

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min 106 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

French visa # 113434.

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Goofs

There is a longer scene in the movie showing a bus trying to turn around on muddy soil. The bus is a Rocar bus, which has been produced only after 1990, and it has stickers on its doors, which surely have not been used before 1989.

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Soundtracks

"O rollà de foc (Seminal M)"
Music comosed by Iuliu Merca
Lyrics by Valeriu Bucuruciu
Copyright 1980 by Electrorecord/Drecturi rezerale, Iuliu Merca & Valeriu Bucuruciu

User Reviews

The main character is too enigmatic

I saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival. This was an earnest but uneven film about life in Romania during the final months of Ceausescu's rule in 1989. Teenaged Eva and her young brother Lalalilu live with their parents and suffer the hardships of living under a hated dictator. Since their neighbour is a cop, they have to be careful what they say, and Eva's parents encourage her budding romance with the policeman's son Alex because of what the family connection could do for them. Instead, her rebellious attitude gets her expelled from her school and sent to a technical school for troubled students. There she connects with another neighbour, Andrei, whose family have already been punished for protesting against the regime. Together they make plans to escape Romania by swimming across the Danube, but when the crucial moment comes, Eva turns back.

Meanwhile, Lilu is plotting with his friends how to kill the dictator. Young Timotei Duma is very reminiscent of Salvatore Cascio, who played young Salvatore (Toto) in Cinema Paradiso. Which means he was extremely cute, and some of his scenes were the best in the film. There are two whimsical scenes where we seem to enter his childlike world: one is set in a submarine taxi where all the villagers can be taken to whatever city in Europe they wish to visit, and the other visualizes the boy blowing a huge chewing gum bubble that becomes so large that it floats away. Clearly, the theme of escape is on everyone's mind.

I wish there had been more scenes like that. Instead, most of the film consists of Eva's various meetings with Alex or Andrei and very little dialogue. For a main character, she was just a little too enigmatic. I definitely felt the film could have used a bit more dialogue and a bit more editing to speed the pace a bit. As well, the ending could have used a bit more explication. There are some pictures of Ceaucescu on live television and what appears to be live coverage of him fleeing but there is no explanation. For Romanians this might be self- evident but for the rest of the world, we could use a little bit of help.

The ending itself is quite lovely, with the increasing tension suddenly released with Ceaucescu's fall. And there were some moments of dark humour, as when the students are required to sing patriotic songs about how wonderful their lives are in Romania when it's plain that everyone is living in misery. But there is a bit of unexplained business at the end surrounding the policeman and his son Alex that bothered me. As well, there were a few strange cinematographic choices throughout the film that proved distracting. Scenes would be clumsily blocked by objects as if the director didn't quite know where to place his camera. It's not a huge surprise to discover that this is Catalin Mitulescu's first feature film.