The Circuit

by Nick Holdsworth
Romanian director Radu Muntean does not normally like to mix family and business but when a kid cast in his new film "Boogie" turned out to be not up to scratch he turned to his four year old son Vlad to rescue the project.

The 36 year old Bucharest film school graduate who carved out a successful career in television advertising during the lean years of Romanian filmmaking in the 1990s, said the early mid-life crisis - about a family man who tries to relive his youth during one night of drunken, whoring debauchery - demanded a child actor able to take the strain of long takes.

“We had another boy but he was not prepared well enough. Vlad was really good. He really helped me a lot and a lot of what we did was based on our experiences together, although even he did not like repeated takes eight or nine minutes long,” said Muntean, who speaks fluent English.

His film, which is playing at Cannes in Directors Fortnight, is his third feature and marks a steady progression into international festival note.

Muntean, who turned down an offer from Berlin’s Forum gambling that Cannes would want his film, is clearly comfortable on the Croisette.

"Boogie", which is being handled for international sales by Canada's Maximum Films, takes a theme he believes is common to many young mothers and fathers - a sudden realisation that the carefree days of youth are gone.

Muntean, whose feature debut "Rage" picked up best photography at Toronto in 2003 and second film - about the Romanian revolution of 1989 - "The Paper Will Be Blue" opened Locarno two years ago before going on to screen at a further 60 international festivals, says the theme is a wider one than those he followed in his earlier films.

Although Romanian film has come to world attention in recent years - particularly since last year’s Palme d’Or win for Cristian Mungiu’s "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" - Muntean denies there is any cohesive new wave of Romanian films despite the limelight last

“Filmmakers in their mid 30s or early 40s in Romania are united by the frustration they felt by national cinematography until around seven or eight years ago. We really did not like what was happening in cinematography - lots of metaphor and symbolism. We felt the need to be honest with ourselves and honest with our movies,” Muntean said.

An urge to move away, as he puts its “from poetry to the more direct language of film” is the identifiable thread that unites new Romanian cinema.

“This is what is common to the young Romanian cinema, otherwise we are not a group. We have no stylistic platform although you can see there are similarities in our movies.”

If Muntean’s last film dealt with events specific to recent Romanian history, his new film is spread across a broader canvas.

The early mid-life crisis of a 30-something father and family man who runs into his old crowd of student mates during a visit to the seaside, "Boogie" is about the nature of personal nostalgia and the challenge to accept and be matured by life’s changing seasons.

Naturalistic direction - nine minute single takes and unobtrusive camera work - together with the theme of how individual histories are interpreted afford it common ground with "The Paper Will Be Blue".

Otherwise the film is very different and potentially has a wider audience, given that anyone past their mid 30s will have gone through similar yearnings to recapture their youth at some point.

“There is a danger in taking a common subject, but I think the film does build up the end and should give audiences food for thought; when I went to the screening here in Cannes at Studio 13 - attended by ordinary local people - I was surprised at how much older people, particularly women, were affected by it.”

Muntean, who believes his experience in Romanian advertising - where the tendency is to make 30 second three act dramas with characters and humour familiar to viewers - has helped hone his directorial instincts.

He confesses there are some autobiographical elements in the film - which he co-wrote with Alexandru Baciu and Razvan Radulescu - and says the three are working on a new script together.

“It will most probably be about couples, that kind of relationship as that is the water that we are swimming in at the moment,” he said.

"Boogie" official site at boogiemovie.com.