Tribeca Romanian Film Festival: The Great Communist Robbery
The Great Communist Robbery **1/2
A Documentary Film by Alexandru Solomon
85 Minutes(Not Rated)
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For the second year, Tribeca Cinemas has hosted a weekend of the latest in Romanian Cinema-the festival only runs for three days, and sadly I was only able to squeeze in a single showing on Sunday night-the last show of the festival. They did showcase two other films that I've seen already-the great "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" winner of the top prize at Cannes this year which is set for a January 25th release at IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and "California Dreamin'," which I saw at this years Toronto Film Festival, a two and a half hour long comedy which I would have loved to see a second time. In the end, the film I got to see was the rather interesting documentary "The Great Communist Robbery," which ends up suffering mostly from the fact that its an interesting story, yet it drags a little, and certainly not like the other Golden Age Romanian films that I've been watching of late.
The subject is an event that occurred in 1959 in Bucharest. At the time, Romania was a police state under Communist rule. Currency stealing was completely forbidden, and if you stole a certain amount of money you could be put to death. After searching and questioning people by the hundreds, the police eventually caught six people, known as the Ioanid Gang, to be charged with the crime. They were less criminals and more intellectual, Jewish, middle class people. The biggest twist to this cat and mouse story is what happened after they were caught. Told that they would escape the death sentence if they did this, the six of them were commissioned to act in a "reconstruction" film where they worked with a very influential Romanian film director to show exactly how they plotted their robbery. In the end, five of the six were shot point blank, and the sixth was given a very long prison sentence. Thanks to fellow movie buff Dan Sallit, whose blog "Thanks for the Use of the Hall" brings more insight into classic and new releases than I can give, posted a link to a discussion about the incident, so if you want to read more about it, just click here.
A problem that I do have with most documentaries is that I can hardly even find myself justify seeing it on a big screen and paying a large sum of money for it. No matter how interesting the story, they never really end up being anything special that we can't watch on television-with the exception of "King of Kong," which just ended up being a massively great time. But it's a rather fascinating story, and one that is supposed to have a historical fiction counterpart coming out in Romania soon. I don't exactly know how you'll be able to see this movie if you are interested in it, but if you ever have the chance it is worth a look see. Its a one of those stories that you just can't make up. Then again, why would you want to?
A Documentary Film by Alexandru Solomon
85 Minutes(Not Rated)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the second year, Tribeca Cinemas has hosted a weekend of the latest in Romanian Cinema-the festival only runs for three days, and sadly I was only able to squeeze in a single showing on Sunday night-the last show of the festival. They did showcase two other films that I've seen already-the great "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" winner of the top prize at Cannes this year which is set for a January 25th release at IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and "California Dreamin'," which I saw at this years Toronto Film Festival, a two and a half hour long comedy which I would have loved to see a second time. In the end, the film I got to see was the rather interesting documentary "The Great Communist Robbery," which ends up suffering mostly from the fact that its an interesting story, yet it drags a little, and certainly not like the other Golden Age Romanian films that I've been watching of late.
The subject is an event that occurred in 1959 in Bucharest. At the time, Romania was a police state under Communist rule. Currency stealing was completely forbidden, and if you stole a certain amount of money you could be put to death. After searching and questioning people by the hundreds, the police eventually caught six people, known as the Ioanid Gang, to be charged with the crime. They were less criminals and more intellectual, Jewish, middle class people. The biggest twist to this cat and mouse story is what happened after they were caught. Told that they would escape the death sentence if they did this, the six of them were commissioned to act in a "reconstruction" film where they worked with a very influential Romanian film director to show exactly how they plotted their robbery. In the end, five of the six were shot point blank, and the sixth was given a very long prison sentence. Thanks to fellow movie buff Dan Sallit, whose blog "Thanks for the Use of the Hall" brings more insight into classic and new releases than I can give, posted a link to a discussion about the incident, so if you want to read more about it, just click here.
A problem that I do have with most documentaries is that I can hardly even find myself justify seeing it on a big screen and paying a large sum of money for it. No matter how interesting the story, they never really end up being anything special that we can't watch on television-with the exception of "King of Kong," which just ended up being a massively great time. But it's a rather fascinating story, and one that is supposed to have a historical fiction counterpart coming out in Romania soon. I don't exactly know how you'll be able to see this movie if you are interested in it, but if you ever have the chance it is worth a look see. Its a one of those stories that you just can't make up. Then again, why would you want to?
posted by Eric at
1:09 AM
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