Aferim! (2015) Reviews

• An exceptional, deeply intelligent gaze at a key historical period, with significant ramifications for today.

  florin_razvan19-317-1410302015-02-13

  A runaway gypsy slave in early 19th-century Wallachia is hunted down by a constable and his son in Radu Jude's most accomplished and original feature yet, "Aferim!" In his two previous films, Jude's leitmotif was people's inhumanity to one another, full of power games and humiliations. Here he stays true to the theme, using this black-and-white oater to trace the roots of Romanian society's less positive characteristics. While its tone is occasionally overly strident, "Aferim!" is an exceptional, deeply intelligent gaze into a key historical period, done with wit as well as anger. "Aferim!" is an Ottoman Turkish expression meaning "bravo!," a word used with deep irony in the film but one that can equally be directed, without any irony, at the director. A great deal of the freshness lies in the way Jude dispenses with traditional historical-film trappings even while cleaving to the classic structure of fugitive-hunting Westerns.There's nothing staid or prettified here, and while a significant amount of background research is on show, the helmer uses it to re-create an atmosphere rather than a specific, sacrosanct event.

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• Lost in translation

  boggdogg902015-03-17

  I think it's almost impossible for someone who is not a Romanian speaker to really get most of the dialog in this movie. There are a lot of archaic words and expressions from funny to sad or contemplative that are for sure lost in translation. I am a Romanian, born and raised in this country, and I didn't understand 30-35 % of the words. I have to see it again with subtitles on to fully appreciate the mesmerizing Wallachian dialect. It's a great movie nonetheless, with beautiful cinematography and solid performances from the actors, so I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to see how life was 200 years ago in Romania.

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• Easily best Romanian film of the decade

  Radu_A2015-12-11

  I'm of Romanian descent, so I'm not entirely objective on this, but as far as film can actually change perceptions of how we see the world around us, "Aferim" is without a doubt an unmatched masterpiece and an absolute first in many ways. It's a rare Romanian historical drama set before the 20th century (with the exception of historical biopics of communist era). It's thematically a Western (or Eastern), since it involves a long journey on horseback, strongly and intentionally recalling "The Searchers". Most importantly, it's an endless series of interchanges with representatives of society back then, by which virtually every social problem of the present day is touched. The genius of this film is that it follows a timeline, through which the spectator is at times bemused and at times horrified by the behavior of the main protagonist, a constable charged with capturing a runaway slave accompanied by his inept son. In a thoroughly realistic way unlike any historical film I have ever seen, we see him treat priests and nobles with respect and peasants and Roma with indifferent cruelty. Sometimes he shows a conscience, as when bonding with his son or asking the slave owner for clemency upon returning him. Sometimes he is shockingly ruthless, like when he sells a Rom boy they also picked up to a passing noble because he wants to afford drinking and whoring. Not only is this the first portrayal of slavery in Romania, a topic not taught in schools and therefore quite controversial. It is a completely naturalistic portrayal as well, unlike any emotionally charged tales out of Hollywood. It easily beats the credibility of "12 Years a Slave", because Jude maintains a sardonic, matter-of-fact narrative instead of drenching his film in moral lessons about the nature of good and evil. Teodor Corban delivers his cop character as a product of his times, with no judgment or exoneration of his actions. If there is one slight weakness at all, it's that the dialogues are sometimes very fast and probably very difficult to translate. As a Romanian raised abroad, I found myself guessing at roughly half of the vocabulary, and even though I got most of the irony, I would not know how to explain it to foreigners and keep the meaning intact. "Aferim!" means "Excellent!" as a Turkish exclamation (recalling that Wallachia at he time was a vassal to the Ottoman Empire - when the constable sends a Turkish carriage the wrong way to spite the Turks, this is how his son praises him. So the title perfectly describes the film in one word - a tale of a time when the ignorant hated everyone else, not realizing how similar they were. When the privileged few treated the abject poor as mere objects, aided by the apathy of commoners, who could not imagine any alternative. This horror mixed with irony resonated strongly with audiences, and would certainly justify a foreign language Oscar next year.

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• Justice for Gypsies

  andreeeei2015-06-13

  Being based on lots of writings from that era, I suppose that this movie reflects a fair image of life in Tara Romaneasca (Wallachia) of the 19th Century, with its' patterns and prejudices. It probably does some justice to today's Romani, when Europe encounters them again and there is no narrative to explain who their ancestors were. And maybe it does some justice to today's Romanians too, when the European public finds out what is the distinction between Romanians and Romani. The movie can evoke amusement, disapproval, empathy. However, the spectator discovers more and more that comedy turns to tragedy. I appreciate the fact that Aferim has complex characters that are not entirely positive or negative.

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• useful

  Vincentiu2015-06-23

  an useful film. for understand the roots of modern Romania. a beautiful one. for archaic language's flavor, for the nuances of emotions, for the powerful clichés who defines the Walachian society not only in the year 1835. a seductive film. for the good performances, for the crumbs from great films, for the art to broke the limits between artistic film and documentary. an interesting film. for the science to reflect a period's deep lines of life. for humanity and for the grace of details. for the art not to remand but recreate not only a portrait but a state . for dialogs and for the values. for something who reflects the profound Romania behind the definitions or verdicts. Teodor Corban does an admirable job and Radu Jude becomes more than a promise for Romanian cinema. because, for the foreign public Aferim ! could be a slice of exotic world from Balkans in the XIX century. for the Romanians it represents chain of answers for a lot of questions. and, maybe, an exercise of honesty.

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