PERIFERIC

A Romanian rebel. Matilda. After two years in prison she is released for twenty-four hours to attend her mother's funeral. Yet she wants more, a lot more: her eight-year-old son, to leave the country for ever and to put the past behind her. Someone as humiliated as she doesn't have any more friends to turn to, the only traces point to a life in which everything went wrong. She visits her brother, who's scared of her, next the father of her child who still believes he can use and abuse her. Then finally her son Tomain in an orphanage. No happy reunions; instead manic desperation and businesslike hypocrisy everywhere she turns. Matilda though is a fighter who has learned to stick at nothing when she senses a shimmer of hope. Thus she flees with her son to the coast, to Constanţa, dreams a better life. Her son however has long been infected with the virus of a degenerate society; on the train to Constanţa he steals money from her and abandons her, forever. Bogdan Apetri succinctly narrates this tragic tale in an almost documentary fashion, reminiscent of the sensitive Cristi Puiu. A bitter reflection on the state of his homeland: heart-renderingly honest, courageous enough to be seen, observed and understood in the international media jungle. An optimist's gentle gaze, yet with a fire that makes imagery of unbridled sadness immortal. Fascinating.