Un etaj mai jos

50th KVIFF – I’ve been assured many times that Romania has an incredible sense of shooting the simplest of premises and making them as interesting and human as possible. One Floor Below is about a family who feel exactly like your neighbors in some sort of a duplex. You know them because they’re your neighbors and they know you for exactly the same reason. Everybody’s completely normal, ordinary, human and unique, but at the same time, they’re facing the same problems we all are. And as it sometimes happens to anyone of us, there’s this one event that breaks the stereotype of their lives. It’s just a shame that the ending is cut so short. I’d really like to see this story from the life of these neighbors finished. But now, I’ll carry this question unanswered for the rest of my life. (05/07/2015)

(50th KVIFF) I didn’t find any major moral dilemma in this story. Dramas can hardly be effective if you can’t see into the thoughts of the leading characters, and the protagonist here couldn’t be more withdrawn. He goes through the events without changing his expression and you don’t know why he does what he does; his motivations are anybody’s guess. And since the film doesn’t provide any hint that would point towards a motivation other than his own simple comfort (not that that makes much sense, it should’ve been clear to him that by not telling anything to the police, he’ll bring much bigger trouble to himself and his family; the meeting with the possible murderer was… uhm… rather ambiguous), the viewer soon gets the feeling that the hero is actually a prick. I’m not questioning the intention of showing the mentality of older people rooted in the environment of communist countries, but I don’t think it was well (or convincingly) portrayed in this case. On top of that, the film has an almost incredible number of pointless scenes and the ending is like laughing at the people who’ve patiently waited for something to come out of it. A friend told me that he felt that One Floor Below had been put together with outtakes from another movie, and I have to agree with him. Something is missing. 40 % (11/07/2015)