Revistă online editată de Uniunea Cineaștilor din România
the flowers, on the grass, on the souls. The dew is God`s tear of joy.” Beyond its peaceful, bucolic aspect, with poultries flying around the lanes, with a few slopes and with people who stop by and have a drink on the porch of the drinking house, Roua is not at all a bucolic, blessed place. And that is because the loquacious mayor (Nicodim Ungureanu) makes a fuss, but more over not important things, the priest (Valentin Popescu) is more of a caricature with a fake beard and a fat lover that he takes with him in rides in a motorbike with sidecar; the gossip is always welcome. The only truly radiant person is the nurse Paula, who lives her drama with decency: one year ago, her husband and her boy who had gone out fishing, ended up being the victims of a car accidents which unfolded right in front of her eyes, because it was live on TV. She now lives with her sister, Luna and with on orphan girl that she is about to adopt. In the context of her usual life which is looked upon by Cărmăzan sometimes with an amused eye and sometimes with a pretty mean but permissive one, strange things start to happen. Up the hill Paula encounters a huge turtle, which is totally inadequate to that place. Lately a strange young man has found shelter in the caves near the village; the villagers call him The Derived One, when his name is actually Happiness (!). He went to the Mayor House to request an address where he could receive the letters he received from his sister who lived in Chicago. An elderly woman who was born here and who is a great lady somewhere in Europe walks around in a blue dress and a bit drunk, until she lands on the sofa (from the cave??) of The Derived One; they start having an affair. All of these things stir the village voice, but not the poultry which are not bothered in the street, a kind of leit-motive of the film. And at some point, as Topârceanu would put it, “a butterfly flies over the entire agitation”. Actually, they are two: Mihai and his assistant. The magicians come to the village, but they won`t stay long because “you only get to feel the magic once. We leave and never come back”. The two people who at the beginning of the film seemed to be some street clowns who entertained the passers-by with pantomime moments, take off their costumes and wipe off their makeup and pretend they have supernatural powers. They even pretend they can bring back to life two people from the village, on the condition that the villagers decide who they choose. “They should bring Eminescu back to life. So that the Russians stop saying he is theirs”. (how about that?!...)
