My Beautiful Dacia

     Building a story based on the Dacia, one of the most powerful local communist brands, the documentary made by Julio Soto and Stefan Constantinescu tells the tragicomic story of a strange, absurd world where every family's dream is to own this car, regardless of the fact that everyone else has the same one. "What happened to this golden dream of Communist Romania?" seems to be the question posed by the authors.
     Thus, the film approaches with a fair share of sympathy and humor an extremely interesting topic, although in a somewhat scattered manner. I say this with regard to the storyline, which takes you from the house of Ninel Staicu, a shady character filmed in the middle of a kitsch palace, a wannabe museum of the Golden Age, to a series of old photos with people standing next to their Dacias (which were, of course, part of the family), then to the post-revolution adventure when two Romanians drove a retired Dacia all the way to Spain. Next there is the visit to the Renault factory; the famous football player Miodrag Belodedici fleeing Romania; the driver who took Nicolae Ceausescu to Targoviste in 1989; the lady (herself an institution) in the elevator of the National Theatre embroidering newer or older models of Dacias. These are all scenes from the film.
     Touching at times, informative at others, Dacia, My Love doesn't recover the sentimental bond between Romanians and Dacias, but rather employs - on a symbolic level - the popularity this car used to have in Romania.