California Dreamin' (Endless) - Cristian Nemescu

California Dreamin’ (Endless), along with such movies as 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and 12:08 East of Bucharest, forms one of the cornerstones of the ongoing Romanian New Wave movement. The director Cristian Nemescu, who tragically died when the movie was deep in post-production, didn’t just suffuse the movie with vivid realism, but also with enough pinching humour, bitter ironies and oblique critical insights to disturb the viewers while also enthralling them. A bitingly satirical yet deeply human...

I managed to catch four movies at the 2008 Kolkata Film Festival (KFF). And it was the last of the four (and incidentally the last at the festival as well) that I ended up liking the most. The fact that I had to rush to the theatre where it was being screened, which happened to be anything but close to my office, and that it was a fairly long movie (around 155 minutes running time) could have been deterring after a long day at work. But all that stopped mattering as soon as the movie began. Such was the magnetic power and the immediate impact of the film.

There’s no doubting the fact that the Romanian New Wave is in full throttle, and I can’t help but profess my unabashed love for the three movies belonging to this movement I have watched thus far. Unfazed of presenting grim ground realities as well as complex psychologies of the common Romanians vis-à-vis their troubled history, armed with tremendous artistic ability, explosive talent and audacity to puncture moments of disturbing reality with dark and unsettling humour, and brutally honest to the very last atom – these are some of the defining features of the directors who are being credited with helming this incredible movement. Where 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days was a claustrophobic exploration of the Ceausescu regime and 12:08 East of Bucharest was a mordant look at how people do not really give a damn anymore of the country’s dark past, California Dreamin’ (Endless), released in 2007, is a bitingly satirical yet deeply human account set during the Kosovo War.

Though a deeply anti-war movie and a socio-political satire, the movie tells a story that might seem just another funny and chaotic fable on the surface. An ensemble character-driven film, it chronicles the tragic-comic aftermaths of a train full of American soldiers and carrying high security NATO equipments being forcefully stopped by the stationmaster at an small Romanian village. The stationmaster Doiaru is an inflexible man whose loathing for everything American lies in his troubled childhood; his daughter Monica is a young girl whose free-spirited rebelliousness is matched only by her fragile and captivating physical beauty; Captain Jones is a parody of no-nonsense American army men for whom life is equated in monochromes, and whose sole intent lies in meeting his deadline; a young Sergeant in the army and seemingly the second in command shows far more diplomatic skill and pragmatism than his Captain, and during the stay ends up having a short but memorable fling with Monica despite their linguistic barriers; the Mayor of the village is a good-natured man whose servile attitude towards Captain Jones stems from his desire to bring investments to the village; the schoolmate of Monica is a soft-spoken nerd who is secretly besotted with girl but ironically ends up acting as an interpreter for her during her attempts at communication with her new-found boyfriend – these are the character who have been etched in such layered and immensely believable details that we end up knowing them in person despite the movie being based on events over just a couple of days. The movie ends with the iconic hippie movement song California Dreamin' by Mammas and Pappas, which strongly reinforced the basic theme of the movie - everyone dreams of something; unfortunately they are rarely fulfilled. Interestingly, the song was also the leitmotif of Wong Kar-Wai's arresting tale on loneliness and heartbreak, Chungking Express.

The director Cristian Nemescu didn’t just suffuse the movie with vivid realism, but also with enough pinching humour, bitter ironies and oblique critical insights to disturb the viewers while also enthralling them. Never afraid of delving into troubling character studies or stripping his country of any sort of saccharine feel good factors, the director showed astonishing maturity and confidence considering that this was his debut feature. Minimalist in composition yet overloaded in its ability to provoke and induce the viewers to reflect, the movie is indeed a rare masterpiece.

The word in parenthesis in the movie’s title, viz. Endless, presents a tragedy that is as sad as the very theme of the movie. While the movie was deep in post-production, the director and his sound editor were killed in a car accident. He was posthumously awarded Prix Un Certain Regard (given to promising young talents) at the 2007 Cannes film festival. Unfortunately though, he never managed to experience the joy and excitement of the release of his first feature film. The producer (showing a rare display of ethics and tribute to the young talent) didn’t continue with the post-production job after Nemescu’s death in order to ensure the auteur’s signature doesn’t gets altered. Consequently the last one-third of the movie wasn’t edited, and it was released exactly as it stood when the director died – and thus the word Endless, which, in fact, should more appropriately have been Unfinished.

However, despite the unpolished and jerky feel at the unedited section of the film, it still manages to be brilliant and utterly memorable, such was the director’s immense ability. His unfortunate death thus has become a matter of deep mourning for those who knew him personally but also the entire world of cinema. His legacy will be enshrined forever through this exceptional piece of art.

A dreamin' trailer of this masterpiece by Nemescu