“Libertate”: The story of the Romanian revolution in Sibiu told by Tudor Giorgiu in a brave and disorienting film. Sarajevo Film Festival once again delves into the contradictions and the human side of power systems.
“Freedom, my soul called to you without a voice. Yesterday oppressed by heavy chains. Freedom, today I too sing with you, yesterday I could only catch a glimpse of you. What eternal mystery are you.”
Sarajevo Film Festival 2023 features a film that chronicles the 1989 Romanian revolution – the last of the 1989 anti-communist revolutions – focusing on the fateful month of December. The fall, escape and killing of Ceaucescu, who was shot on Christmas Day.
As is often the case when a dictatorship gets overthrown, what follows is a turbulent period of readjustment, not devoid of violence.
On December 22nd, the Council of National Salvation Front (CFSN) was established. A provisional, nonelective body of power that would be dissolved after the 1990 elections, after which the first elected parliament of democratic Romania was formed. The film is set in the city of Sibiu, in the heart of Transylvania, where – as the ending quotes – “In December, 200.000 bullets, 500 cannon shots and 650 missiles were fired… 99 people died, 272 were injured and 522 were illegally detained in the local pool”.
It is precisely on this last episode that Libertate focuses. On the detention of those state functionaries-from the military, to the judiciary system, to members of the Securitate (the secret police of the regime) and so forth – among whom the culprit who led the armed repression of the protests were sought after. But in the mayhem of the outbursting violence it is rather impossible to identify them, not only for the characters but also for the audience.
The film in fact opens with a representation of this confusion. In the beginning, gun shots are coming from everywhere, and we cannot tell precisely who belongs to which group, between the revolutionaries and the reactionaries – or better, the new and the old system. The latter immediately gets rid of the uniform so as not to be a clear target, thus the parties all look the same: blood covering their plain clothes.
This adrenaline-fueled chaos is reflected in the stylistic choices, especially in the first part of the movie: haphazard and frantic, with very fast editing and a camera that is all over the protagonists.
The film focuses on the point of view of the officers of the Ceaucescu’s regime – in different levels. They soon get detained, as the new embryonic establishment investigates their previous actions.
For almost the entire duration of the film, we will see them inside an empty swimming pool as they wait to be interrogated. Injured, frightened, cold, humiliated, endlessly queuing for the bathroom and stuck in the unbearable agony of their unknown fate. Some go on hunger strike claiming their innocence, some try to keep their spirits up, some are restless, some hopeless and some mad. All the range of human emotions gets to be analysed, and it doesn’t matter who they belong to: they are human emotions nevertheless. It’s impossible not to empathize.
This is the second time that Sarajevo Film Festival 2023 presents a feature which shows the human side of power and the human machinery of dictatorship, which is made of people, not mechanical gears. The same idea in fact lies behind Lost Country, directed by Vladimir Perisic and set during 1996 elections in Serbia, presenting the old oppressive party through the figure of a woman that we see mainly as a mother rather than as a politician, in her private sphere rather than the public one.
With this Romanian film, the process is almost the same.
We do not know exactly if the prisoners of the pool did work for the regime out of ideology, out of weakness, out of fear, or for an easier life. We never know what they did, what their level of guilt and responsibility was, but to be fair, this is not the interest of the audience. We are simply involved in their fate as beings.
And this is the main strength of Libertate: it is a hymn to humanity, a sentence against violence – every kind of it, and from every side it gets perpetrated. At the same time, it is also a sad realization of how brutality is inherent to mankind, and how easy it is to go from one side to the other: from the oppressed, to the oppressor, and vice versa. Like the blind vendetta that sentences to death the guardian of Ceaucescu’s mansion, guilty of keeping the dictator warm.
Like a chemical reaction that fizzes before acquiescing in the test tube, such is the turmoil in the pool, representing the passage from two different political states, before Romania settles in democracy.
Tudor Giorgiu creates a courageous opera that challenges the collective imagination and the stereotypical representations of the pawns of authority in order to exhibit those aspects that we can all relate to, and that go beyond any ideology, flag or uniform. And it does so not in order to justify oppressive regimes obviously, but rather as a means that can lead to a better understanding of what lies underneath them and as a warning. Libertate is in fact a statement to how cautious everyone must be when it comes to the delicate matter of leading a country. Power is a weird beast that must be tamed with wisdom and should be administered with equity.
Sarajevo presents a real piece of art that reveals mortals in all the contradictions of their social behaviours, the ugliness, the abuses, but also the love, feelings and the sense of brotherhood. In this sense, the scene of the soccer game, or New Year’s Eve is particularly impactful. And above all, the closure with the song “Libertate” that gives the title.
Giorgiu’s finale fills up with sorrow and with the hope that there may come a time when no oppression of any kind shall exist. A time when perhaps the right to freedom will be so sacred and inherent to societal living that there will no longer be need to fight for it.
It will be natural and naturally granted to everyone.
After Parking (2019), the Romanian director presents another interesting feature that is definitely worth watching.
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