Complete credited cast: | |||
Tim Roth | ... | Dominic Matei | |
Alexandra Maria Lara | ... | Veronica / Laura / Rupini | |
Bruno Ganz | ... | Prof. Roman Stanciulescu | |
André Hennicke | ... | Dr. Josef Rudolf | |
Marcel Iures | ... | Prof. Giuseppe Tucci | |
Alexandra Pirici | ... | Woman in Room 6 | |
Adrian Pintea | ... | Pandit | |
Florin Piersic Jr. | ... | Dr. Gavrila | |
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
Mircea Albulescu | ... | Davidoglu | |
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Dan Astileanu | ... | Professor (as Dan Astilean) |
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Cristian Balint | ... | Grenzschutz |
Dragos Bucur | ... | Bartender | |
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Zoltan Butuc | ... | Dr. Chirila |
Theodor Danetti | ... | Dr. Neculache | |
Andrei Gheorghe | ... | Taxi Driver |
Christmas Eve, 1937, Piatra Neamt, Romania: Dominic Matei, a 70-year-old professor, contemplates suicide. The love of his life is dead, and he remains unable to complete his life's work on the origins of language. On April 24th 1938, Easter Sunday, he takes a train to Bucharest to kill himself, but suddenly he's struck by lightning. After a slow recovery, he miraculously grows younger and gains superhuman powers. WWII breaks out and Romania's fascist dictator Ion Antonescu cooperates with Adolf Hitler. Matei must escape to Switzerland, because Nazi scientists want to use his powers...Some years later, he meets a woman who has her own passage through a lightning storm. Not only does Dominic find love again, but her new abilities hold the key to his research...Coppola's adaptation of Mircea Eliade's surreal novella is a mysterious, romantic, melancholic and humorous journey to the outer limits of space, time and identity. Dreams become reality and reality feels like a dream... Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
I was flabbergasted to see that a lot of the comments for this film were negative. The fact that the movie is not of a commercial nature doesn't make it bad, it just makes it less accessible. In this manner, it is just as bad for movies as a science paper is for publications.
Anyway, the film is based on a book of Romanian Mircea Eliade, one that I didn't read. Actually, I didn't read most of Eliade's work for the very reasons people bad mouthed this film. Then I entered adolescence :-P.
The film, though, is a resounding success to me. Not only that it is well done, but at the end of it, it let me wanting to understand more and to read the book. Maybe I will one of these days. As the film is impossible to summarize here, I will get to a quick conclusion.
Bottom line: a heavy feeling film, with a complex script and a lot of philosophical ideas of Eliade's scattered through the story; also some of his personal obsessions: orientalism and the loss of the love of his life. I personally think it was a great movie, but it became a bit confused at the end.