Available at Amazon.com
Director
Corneliu Porumboiu
Cast
Mirceau Andreescu – Emanoil Piscoci
Teodor Corban – Virgil Jderescu
Ion Sapdaru – Tiberiu Manescu
Release Date: September 29th
Running Time: 89 Minutes
The Movie
Every country has a story to tell about how it became the country it is today. The United States has the Revolutionary War and the Civil war as its story. The French have the storming of the Bastille, and Romania has the Communist Revolution. Or do they? That is the main story behind 12:08 East of Bucharest: Did a revolution happen in their small town east of the titular city or did they merely celebrate after the countries Revolution won else where across the nation?
There are three main characters in the movie, Emanoil Piscoci, also called Old Man Piscoci, Virgil Jderscu, a Romanian talk show host, and Tiberiu Manescu, an alcoholic school teacher.
The first half on the film is pretty slow and plodding, it follows the three around as they go about their routine in preparation for the talk show that day. After one of Jderscu’s guests cancels he’s forced to find a fill in with only a few hours before going on the air. He picks Old Man Piscoci, because he remembers Piscoci playing Santa Claus when he, Jderscu, was a young boy. There are some mildly amusing moments in the realization Jderscu’s main guest will not show up. The teacher’s(Manescu) day starts with a phone call, after confirming he’ll be at the show in the afternoon, he has a fairly formula argument with his wife over his wages. He then goes to school to teach the children that failed a previous exam. There are a couple funny lines while he’s in class, “How am I supposed to help you if you can’t even cheat correctly?” His financial problems also come up here as he’s seen paying off numerous debts, in a way that attempted to be funny, but comes up flat.
The last half of the movie is based on the talk show taking place. The camera work here humorously shows that it is a low grade talk show with the camera constantly bouncing around. Old Man Piscoci saves this talk show with with some pretty good gags, from leaning over to make sure he’s in the shot, to folding origami while the other two are talking, only to have a stage hand yank it away from him. The movie runs the show as if it were live with no editing around the question or commercials, and it takes up the entire second half of the film with no flashbacks or cutaways, just the three talking on camera with an occasional viewer call in.
12:08 East of Bucharest is not a bad movie, but its hardly a good one either. It’s called a Comedy/Drama, and there are some funny parts, but not enough to put it over the top. And the drama falls completely flat. There’s no real build to any climax and no real reason to care whether or not there was a revolution in this small town or not.
One of the best aspects, I must admit, is the cinematography. The way some of the shots are set up is fantastic. For starters, the camera never moves. We’re used to movies that have the camera following the action around the set, this movie, sets the camera on a wide shot and lets the movie take place in the shot. There are a couple cool shots where half the screen is blocked by a doorway, limiting the area for the action to take place and the shot would stay the same throughout the scene, there was no jumping to close up, or switching to a different angle, it was one continuous shot until the next scene.
The length of the shots also puts a strain on the actors and there is no edit break, so the scenes are one continuous motion, and the actors and actresses are responsible for long periods of time without screwing up a line. All the actors do a fine job, Mircea Andreescu does a good job of playing the quirky old man Piscoci, Teodor Corban does a wonderful of portraying a slightly arrogant TV host, and Tiberiu Manescu portrays an alcoholic teacher sufficiently.
A/V Quality
There’s some nice music in parts but for the most part its merely spoken word. The sound is a little soft on a few occasions, but it doesn’t really matter as the film is in Romanian, and you’ll most likely be reading subtitles. There’s a time or two where the subtitles go a little fast, but on the whole it’s fine. Anamorphic Widescreen, Dolby 5.1, DTS Surround Sound 5.1. English and Spanish Subtitles for the Romanian impaired.
Special Features
Basic stuff here. Director Commentary and a boatload of trailers from Tartan Video, including the 12:08 East of Bucharest theatrical trailer.
The Inside Pulse
It’s really not terrible. It’s not something you’re probably going to want to pick up. It’s 5 dollar bin at Wal-Mart material. 12:08 is actually better quality than most of the stuff in those bins, but it’s entertainment value for the standard person won’t be there.
