The boredom and the comfort: “Double” –film review

    An image to date of our cinematography shows a more and more emphatic tendency towards diversity. The years of the reign of the minimalism - they were glorious, indeed, but they didn`t lack the risk of imposing a fashion – made room to the concentration of different genres and ways, from films with the panache of ages from the past, to comedies, from thrillers to strong family dramas, from cheerful love stories to some tense ones, to the narration of the difficult coming of age. 

Lately, I`ve also noticed a few attempts to bring what I would call the disturbing of the moral balance of the individual to the center of the story; the difficulty of this exercise also speaks about the frequency of using famous philosophical or poetical quotations in the body of the film as a supposed trigger of meanings. The heroine from 03.ByPass  quoted Kant`s well-known line, “the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”, which is so familiar to everybody.

Two of the characters from the recent feature film Double of the debutant director Catrinel Dănăiață (who was also the co-screenwriter, together with Alexandra Axinte and Andreea Borțun) remind us of Walt Whitman`s verses: “Stranger, if you passing, meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not talk to me? And why should I not speak to you?” The use of this quote helps more or less; it brings more of a demonstrative intellectual touch to the director`s intention (which is meritorious) to transmit the confusion of a man who doesn`t feel ok inside his skin anymore. I don`t see why at the press conference the director attached the hero`s tiredness, insecurity and discomfort to the disappointment of a generation. The film contradicts her. Disappointment after what? Briefly, George (Bogdan Dumitrache) is a successful architect. His profession is not a routine one, but a creative one. The small revolt against his naggy boss who, after all, only does his job reminding him the deadline for handing in the projects (“I`m sick and tired of putting money in your pockets” – shouts the protagonist to him) seems to be more of a circumstantial one, said in the heat of the moment. The dominant feel is that of an existential crisis, that the author hovers around, not knowing where to place herself in order to better observe it and to follow the protagonist`s gestures that may betray his hidden feelings. Let there be no mistake about it, even if he doesn`t feel at ease in any space, neither at home, nor at his lover, in a modern house, or in his parents` home in a small town, the hero has nothing of the Camusian stranger, “the poor and naked man”. Our architect rather seems to suffer of a sort of a fever, of a longing for something with no name and up to a point, with no face. Catrinel Dănăiață builds her scenes as so many chapters which, in their narrative arranging, could very well have a name of a chapter, like a key to the assumed state of being of the protagonist. And they would be: feeling bored in the company of the woman who deliberately tries to bring him on the right track, of the domestic normal life, the refreshing innocence of the man-child who rides his bike inside the house (there`s plenty of room for it, after all), the retreat, symbolized by his cousin`s perfect fitting in the world – she is a happy mother, she is rich, she is wise and above all, she is the utmost phantasm, Alina, the sly female allurement (Maria Dinulescu); She just pops up every now and then, in the bustle of a bar, on a train station platform or on a beach which is deserted or rarely tread upon, anyway it is on the verge between reality and a haunting mental projection. I think that out of all the movements of the hero, the nicest one is his obsession for Alina`s phone number, a slight fixation played with a smart-subversive sympathy by Bogdan Dumitrache. But when in the end the protagonist is given what the director called, with a much too precious biblical reference, “the gift of the tears”, the actor looks a bit embarrassed. On the vast surface of the residence of the above mentioned cousin, the games of the children and the image of the domestic happiness make him burst into tears which are supposed to have a benefactor effect. Impelled to cure his nephew`s bugaboos, maybe the man will find the answers to his own restlessness. That is with the hope that nobody will take seriously the few sinister signs that are put by the author in the main character`s way: a raven, a spider, etc, small metaphorical caprices, which are inherent to many debuts.