'How I spent the end of the world' tells about the last phase of the nightmare that was the Communist rule in Romania and especially the last years of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. For the history of modern Romania it was the moment when hope was born again.
The principal characters live in a sordid environment, some place at the periphery of Bucharest. Their only dream is of escaping the world they live in, a dull and gray world of lies and fear, dominated the overwhelming and omnipresent figure of the dictator which was controlling reality and dreams as well. Escaping can be tried in many ways. The young ones may try to run out of the country illegally crossing the border, at risking their own lives and liberty and their families' too. The older characters resign themselves in humor and jokes which were a risk as well. And the kids may dream of killing the dictator, as the younger brother in the story plans, but this line of the story is not too well developed unfortunately.
The film is quite minimalistic in its means, it does not have a too coherent story, looking like the principal focus of the director was in catching on screen the atmosphere and reality of that last year of the dictatorship in almost a documentary manner, before the memory of what happened then fades out completely. He does succeed here, but the result may be not as interesting as a film, and surely much of the nuances will get lost for international audiences. It looks somehow like a miss, because the original idea of the kid dreaming to kill Ceausescu or the story of the coming of age of the young girl very well acted by Doroteea Petre leave the impression that the movie could have been more, but decided to stay within a restricted scope it imposed on itself.
The principal characters live in a sordid environment, some place at the periphery of Bucharest. Their only dream is of escaping the world they live in, a dull and gray world of lies and fear, dominated the overwhelming and omnipresent figure of the dictator which was controlling reality and dreams as well. Escaping can be tried in many ways. The young ones may try to run out of the country illegally crossing the border, at risking their own lives and liberty and their families' too. The older characters resign themselves in humor and jokes which were a risk as well. And the kids may dream of killing the dictator, as the younger brother in the story plans, but this line of the story is not too well developed unfortunately.
The film is quite minimalistic in its means, it does not have a too coherent story, looking like the principal focus of the director was in catching on screen the atmosphere and reality of that last year of the dictatorship in almost a documentary manner, before the memory of what happened then fades out completely. He does succeed here, but the result may be not as interesting as a film, and surely much of the nuances will get lost for international audiences. It looks somehow like a miss, because the original idea of the kid dreaming to kill Ceausescu or the story of the coming of age of the young girl very well acted by Doroteea Petre leave the impression that the movie could have been more, but decided to stay within a restricted scope it imposed on itself.