REVIEW | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 66TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Posted on 2010-02-05 23:57

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.

REVIEW | FRANCESCA (ROMANIA) - REVIEW BY VARIETY.COM

Posted on 2010-02-05 23:24

A Mandragora Movies production. (International sales: Mandragora, Bucharest.) Produced by Bobby Paunescu, Cristi Puiu. Executive producer, Anca Puiu. Directed, written by Bobby Paunescu.
With: Monica Birladeanu, Dorian Boguta, Luminita Gheorghiu, Teodor Corban, Doru Ana, Dana Dogaru, Mihai Dorobantu, Dan Chiriac, Isabela Neamtu, Ion Sapdaru, Ion Besoiu.

Bobby Paunescu, producing partner of Cristi Puiu ("The Death of Mr. Lazarescu"), makes an intriguing debut as feature director with "Francesca," an immigrationyarn given substance by its blackly comic view of the characters and an involving perf as the titular wannabe emigree by Monica Birladeanu. Pic is largely festival and cable fare, with occasional arthouse dates in Europe likely.

Most of the script's quiet humor trades on tensions between Romania and Italy, where more than 1 million Romanians reside and some politicians have made strident anti-Romanian pronouncements following violence by immigrants. (One politico, Alessandra Mussolini, who's named in the movie, threatened to take out a lawsuit at the time of the pic's Venice screening.)

Francesca (Birladeanu) is a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher who lives with her mother, Ana (Luminita Gheorghiu), and idealistically dreams of setting up a kids' school in Rome to improve Romanians' image in Italy. Her relationship with longtime b.f. Mita (Dorian Boguta) is going nowhere, but she still vacillates over the move as one after another friend or relative gives her advice.

The basic joke is that, though many Romanians think Italians are only a cut above uncivilized, they consider each other equally duplicitous. But Francesca is still in thrall of the post-communist dream that a better life is to be lived elsewhere, preferably in West Europe.

One of her friends, Maria (Isabela Neamtu), introduces her to a black marketeer, Pandele (Ion Sapdaru), who promises Francesca a job as a nurse to an old invalid near Milan. The deal, which involves her leaving almost immediately, has a bad smell: Francesca's father, Ion (Teodor Corban), is against it, but her mother and Mita encourage her to go. Mita says he'll join her soon, as soon as he's finished a deal he's working on, but his monetary problems conspire to prove a further drag on her plans.

Working with several cast members from "Lazarescu" (Birladeanu, Gheorghiu, Boguta), Paunescu draws simpatico performances from his players, despite often long takes from a fixed camera that pans back and forth between protags in a scene. The curiously clunky visual style -- clearly deliberate -- almost gives the film the flavor of a 35mm homemovie, though one that is always well lit, in both interiors and exteriors.

Offbeat style is also part and parcel of the movie's black humor, including a sequence between Francesca and her money-lending godfather that's almost surreal, and another in which Francesca and Ana are visited by a quietly menacing thug (Mihai Dorobantu) who's looking for Mita.

With not a great deal happening plotwise, it's in such grace notes that the appeal of the film lies. With a less skillful cast, the offbeat mixture wouldn't work -- and the pic could still use some trims: A far too long scene of Mita recounting his money problems to Francesca is one obvious candidate.

By DEREK ELLEY

Posted: Sat., Sep. 19, 2009, 4:55pm PT

Venice

INTERVIEWS | PLAYBOY.COM - WOMAN ON THE VERGE: MONICA DEAN, BY PATRICK Z. MCGAVIN

Posted on 2006-01-24 15:45

...
Playboy.com: You debuted recently on Lost, which is a massive pop culture phenomenon. Do you think it will change your life professionally?
Monica Dean: Everybody says so, though I can't really see it yet. I think things will change for me, because I see the expressions of people I'm auditioning for since I appeared on Lost.

Playboy.com: Because you're mysterious and beautiful and speak with an accent, does that classify you as "exotic"?
Monica Dean: I know I'm swimming in a different pool. I don't know if it's an exotic one, it's just a different one. I don't know how I'm perceived. I never see myself through my accent or my nationality...

For reading the full interview, visit playboy.com website.

PRESS ARTICLES | COMING SOON ...

Posted on 2006-01-18 00:00