”Youtube Bazaar”: The World of Bahoi - filmreview

Let's talk about a group (about seven) of gipsy kids of various ages, living in a village somewhere near Constanța city. They don't even own a computer, but they know about youtube; when somebody shows them something about working the program -  ”press a key here, move the mouse, click on this” – they get it right away. This is the world Bahoi came from as well – a unique youtube star in a world where the virtual space delivers tons of stars. Mainly because it's free.Dan Chișu turned this young gypsy boy – he has no problem being called a gipsy, having no time for politically correct substitutes - into the seducing character of his documentary film, Youtube Bazaar. Through him we enter a universe basically familiar to everybody – no big deal, you make a movie of yourself with your mobile, you put it on youtube and, if you're lucky, you can call yourself an underground star. The place is lousy with curious people, or eccentrics, naïve ones,frauds and idlers who got the trick of ”hiding in plain sight”. But, as true with all social phenomena, people are not the same, one of us stands out occasionally, telling us more about the present day, about virtual communication, and everybody does it with a certain touch of picturesque. Maybe this is why serious people like the sociologists Bogdan Teodorescu and Alfred Bulai, or like other numerous journalists and shrinks, have taken upon themselves to explain, though a little bit too scholastically, how the on-line world grants ”the opportunity for nobodies (as in anonymous) to talk to other nobodies and become celebrities in a censorship-free environment”, or how we witness ”the first great democratisation not around the politics, but around information”. Where experts strive to interpret a gesture or a thought, Bahoi adds the substance and the surprise of the creative act. Bahoi is a nickname borrowed from a fiddler, his real name being Alexe Gheorghe Daniel. The boy is undoubtedly talented, he makes smartchoices whether he authors short movies like the hyper-viewed Bahoi jumps from the bridge, The Spartan Chicken or other clips emphasising his hip-hop skills. He doesn't like gypsy music because he is the ”artist from Constanța who doesn't want to ruin his image”. He has an instinctive sense of adequacy, ”you don't put a top model in a clay cottage”, so for one of his short movies he chose a plus-sized girl, who was ”more vulnerable”. He didn't miss the chance to mock the electoral campaign as well, he would like to own a TV station, but he also collects old computers to bring them to poor kids. He goes places, he doesn't keep still, he knows he has imitators, but he is not afraid, ”not because he thinks his IQ is higher, but because he knows he is different”. What to do with Bahoi? psychologists ask themselves. You just leave him where he got by himself, will he be able to move on given his lack of a systematic education?The documentary film by Dan Chișu avoids any moralising speeches. Bahoi is who he is and that's it, a flash into our present-day world.