September 18, 2009

Director Bobby Paunescu made a strong debut with Francesca, which stylistically follows suit with other recent Romanian indies, with scenes composed of one single take lasting for several minutes and a camera that minimally moves. But unlike so many films that use this real-time approach, you forget the presence of Paunescu's camera, mostly because of the direct story line and the strong cast.

Monica Birladeanu in FRANCESCA (Photo: Venice Film Festival)

Its heroine, 30-year-old Francesca (Monica Birladeanu), has saved 2,000 euros to pay a middle man for a caretaking job near Milan. Her boyfriend reassures her that it's the best decision she could make to get the hell out of the country and start a new life. What he doesn't tell her is that he owes an excessive amount of money to loan sharks. (And there's an additional secret that only he and the audience are privy to.)

Filmed entirely in Romania, the film's real villain is anti-immigrant Italy. Over and over again, Francesca is warned that she could be treated as a slave, or worse, forced into prostitution, if she immigrates there. The cutting barbs directed at Italian right-winger Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Il Duce, and the mayor of Verona, who declared his city free of Romanians, received cheers from the well-attended audience.

After the director has laid out Francesa's dilemma, the film drags a bit before it reaches its resolution. However, Francesca is an exceptional example of a feature film that has the narrative freedom to depict a social issue more viscerally and concretely than a documentary, as in the case with another film at the festival, Il Colore delle Parole (The Color of Words), an amicable and saintly profile of a Cameroon-born poet and teacher who has lived in Italy for 35 years. The film generally describes the Italian resistance to its growing nonwhite population.