User Reviews

The Leninist experiment is undoubtedly the most important event of the twentieth century. An economic system was installed, which outperformed for instance the semi-feudal states of South-America and Asia. For some time it even seemed possible that it could match the capitalist systems of the west. Unfortunately the Leninist system could only be introduced at the cost of the dictatorship of the party, which made the system rather desolate. The sad repression varies among the countries, and so I was interested to see the version of the Romanian nation (that is, as someone pointed out, Italian, and not Slavic. Note: a bigamist is a thick fog over Rome). The film The way I spent the end of the world tries to depict the way of life in Romania. Unfortunately it is made in 2005, after the liberation, and focuses on the repressive side of the regime. It was ugly, although there is a positive side: even if you don't know what you are doing, someone else does. The young woman Eva is still a schoolgirl. The lessons are dominated by propaganda - a gentlemanly goose (joke). Eva is torn between two men, a dissident friend Andrei and a Leninist neighbor Alex. Eva does not take a political stance, and simply tries to find happiness. At first she sympathizes with Andrei, but she backs out, when they try to cross the border. Perhaps she is testing the strength of his love. Indeed they separate. It is morbid. She hopes for a higher offer. So subsequently she befriends Alex, who in the mean time has broken with the Leninist party, because of her. This seems to be an expression of true love. In 1989 the little brother of Eva shoots at Ceauescu with a catapult, and this starts the fight for liberation. Alex is killed in the ensuing struggle. In the last shot we see Eva sailing towards the sunset on a cruise ship (enjoy the view of the ocean, that is eliminated by our special lighting at night). There is always light at the end of the tunnel, unless you are agoraphobic. It is a gentle film, but still leaves me dissatisfied. Similar to "Das Leben der Anderen" (DDR/GDR) the film has the clashes between the dissidents and the secret policy at heart. But what is the message? You should not flee, but change the regime from within? And while the repression violated the civil rights, it is not the experience of the common people. I prefer the portrayal in "12:08 East of Bucharest" where in fact the life of the people is hardly changed by the liberation. The fall of Ceauescu is simply an event on TV. And don't forget to comment, I love it!

First of all I heart about the content of this movie from the trailer, and I thought "there is a brilliant idea concerning a kid who's going to assassinate Ceasescu". Of course I expected to find out a metaphorical ending. Then I saw Dorothea Petre in "Rhina" and I expected more from her.

Sick and tired of Daneliuc's absurd and Pita's imagistics I hoped that Cristi Puiu's success with "Moartea Domnului Lazarescu" might open the door for many romanian directors willing to cross over the 80's. Unfortunately "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" wasn't anything else than a disappointment. I could easily understand this movie as a chronicle, but finally, it wanted more. I only found a new director trying to copy Jarmusch and in a wrong manner Kieslowski. The single metaphor of the movie is the big chewing gum balloon, that reminded me of Pink Floyd's symbols of estrangement, which wasn't able to find its place in a concrete film. „How I Celebrated the End of the World „ is the end of coloquial jokes, the end of apparent happiness and a triumph of communication breakdown. The heroes do not speak, after 90 minutes you find nothing more about them than you knew in the beginning. Full of short cuts, "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" follows its simple story filling in all this time with useless scenes of a suburban Bucharest. During one hour we have: a boyfriend, rebellion out of nothing (accidental hooliganism against one of Ceausescu's statue), expel, sickness, a new school, a new friend, a baptism, an "undercover" securitate neighbour, the temptation of illegal crossing the Danube. From now on, things are said, we quickly find that the small brother is going to assassinate Ceausescu, out of nothing, and surrounded by a lack of communication. Even if a youngster in the 80's, I can remember the jokes and the general discontent of the masses. In this movie the is no relation between poverty and rebellion, between the old world ending and the new one, being born.

I am not able to understand what good in casting Mircea Diaconu, a brilliant actor in an invisible role, same as Jean Constantin, full of feelings and expression if you don't lean on their performance. They could easily save this movie, but unfortunately this din't happen. It was such a big waste. As for the young actors, nobody „was allowed" to act, they only contributed phisically to this movie.

The single good thing that happened in this movie was the music, Alexander Balanescu is once again great, composing and singing a thrilling and obsessing score. As for the "single" Tara noastra, I am afraid it happened the same phenomenon as for Noi in anul 2000 from "Occident". Just an old song, fastening the heart beats for all nostalgics.

Once again, I am tempted to consider Cristi Puiu and Nae Caramfil the best Romanian directors of the moment. "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" is only a lucky movie, with a fine script idea, but just this. Nothing more! No wonder Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese produced din movie, seduced off course by the project, the perspective offered by a kid who's going to assassinate Ceausescu in the very day the Romanian revolution irrupts. Such a pity the collective soul doesn't react properly and the whole moment lasts only a couple of minutes.

We have good actors, I might say brilliant actors, but absolutely chaotic directors and "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" is the best proof. The difference between Catalin Mitulescu and Cristi Puiu is that Puiu dares to be himself, Mitulescu is still governed by Jarmusch without noticing the impossibility to do a Jarmusch movie without a proper school and concept. Not every raw movie is a Jarmusch movie.

I hope Mitulescu's next movie will not be another disappointment, though I think it would be better not to release another movie.

This is one of the weakest movies I have seen this year.I have entered in the cinema with the hope that I'll see something if not original,at least interesting-but surprise-a weak movie with dull acting performance and a plot with many holes.

The microphone was annoying as it can be seen in the second half of the movie until the end of it-I think-I'did't resist to see it all!The action was slow and pointless and goofs like Converse sneakers in the scene at the music class,etc. totally ruined this hopeless film.

The only good idea was the chewing gum balloon scene with Lalalilu but the string attached to the balloon- well seen - blows it up !!!

I really have doubts about the way the jury in the film festivals are judging this kind of films and their criteria to nominee them and gave prizes!

Childhood comes around only once, needless to say, and where you spend your formative years is a matter of happenstance. For Lalailu Matei(Timotei Duma), his childhood happens to be in Romainia, during the latter stage of President Nicolas Ceausescu's fifteen-year reign. From our perspective, and the family's perspective, communist-era Romainia offers itself as a pretty bleak primer on life for a young boy like Lalailu. Under Ceausescu's rule, food was short, gas was short, medical supplies, you name it, short, and a man could be thrown into prison on a moment's notice. But while the tall people remember their country during its better days, Lalailu benefits from having a short memory. While he and his little friends may curse the effect that this Romainian dictator has on their lives, the anger is largely theoretical, a reciprocation of their parents' frustration with the gap between their present and former lives. Late in "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii", Lalailu is judiciously used as a discordant instrument against the state apparatus, in a scene where the boy passes off a poem written by his friend's grandfather as his own words(for festivities in honor of Ceausescu), thanking the president "for this wonderful childhood of mine". Does Lalailu fully grasp the sarcasm and contempt of what he's reading? Although the poem is part of his assassination plot against Ceausescu, does the boy truly understand its propagandistic undertones of the author, as a subversive attack of the official propaganda of the state? After all, this is the only childhood he knows, and by all appearances, in spite of the less-than-ideal circumstances of a police state, the boy seems reasonably happy. That's because he and his friends, the resilient creatures which children are, transform the intrigue of their small village into a game. The reality of communist-era Romainia is better reflected through Eva, Lalailu's older sister, who learns: If you break the bust of Nicolas Ceausescu's head, you more than pay for it.

"Light a candle while you listen to this and you'll see the future," read the note that Anita Miller(Zooey Deschanel) left behind in the gatefold cover of The Who's "Tommy" in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous". Her younger brother William(Patrick Fugit) finds the note, lights the candle, plays the record, and is shocked into his sister's existence via Pete Townshend's axe. "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" riffs on this scene, as Lalailu, likewise, undergoes a horizon realignment after he plays a vinyl record, belonging to their new neighbor Andrei(Cristian Vavaru), the son of Ceausescu protesters, who goes to the same reform school as Eva. Unlike William, the Romainian boy has some serious reservations about the heavy riffage that greets him at the record player; he asks his big sis, "You like this, don't you?" She does, and consequently, so does Lalailu. The rock music serves as a counterpoint to the official music of the state: inspirational anthems about the motherland, which Eva and the other reform students are forced to sing. The music offers Eva a safe rebellion against her codified life; a life in which her parents use her as an enticement to the cop's son, Alex(Ionut Becheru), Eva's former beau who busted the bust, as a way of augmenting their already compromised lives with unforgivable compromises, by asking their daughter to be, in essence, a whore, for medicine and other gratuities. When Lalailu delivers Eva the album of Romainian metal, Andrei not only offers the girl an escape through anarchic and illicit music, but also the promise of a literal escape from their restricted lives; the promise of change. They hatch a plan to cross the Danube River. They train. Unable to cross the Danube herself, however, Eva returns home, and gets an earful from her mother. "You're always stuck with that idiot," she tells Eva. And in a move that's pure rock and roll, Lalailu decides to kill Ceausescu while he silently watches both women argue. The night before his speaking engagement, Eva teaches her brother a folk song on her guitar, the instrument Woody Guthrie described as a "machine" that "kills fascists". With this gesture, Eva passes on the gift of music, as Anita did in "Almost Famous", but with something riding on the line more than being cool(Anita to William, "One day, you'll be cool."). Whereas William lived out his rock and roll fantasy, Lalailu remains there, carrying out his pretend assassination on live television, closer to a full consciousness-raising, closer to understanding the method to his madness. Meanwhile, Eva leaves home and becomes an attendant on a luxury liner, a stewardess of sorts(the song Eva teaches Lalailu is like the equivalent of Anita playing Simon & Garfunkel's "America" for her mother, in which Deschanel delivers the immortal line: "This song explains why I'm leaving home to become a stewardess.")

While I was expecting some nice cultural education, I found the story badly wanting. I was getting bored really through the second half. I would say it was passable for the first half. When a film decides to bore me to death and then unceremoniously chooses some extremely bizarre scenes, such as the bubblegum scene, it was too much. I found myself saying get-to-***k, you can't just do that out of the blue without some established quirkiness from the outset. Usually I like quirky twists (see the Spanish film The Red Squirrel), but this story had no twists, and was a real flat pancake. The dialogue was equally numbing, with some weird people. Or maybe that's how Romanians were in 1989! I refuse to believe that. And don't get me started on that dreadful music..... (really not a fan of Balkan or gypsy music at all) especially not national anthems. The acting was a little wooden from the lead girl I found, plus she looked a bit too old I think. The father seems to be the best actor in the film but he didn't have such a big role. Mood films are OK, but it really depends what you do with them, in my opinion they were very limited by the story, the actors, the music and the dialogue. Give this one a miss, it's not worth your attention.