On December 22, 1989 at 12:08 PM, Bucharest experienced one of the most important moments in Romanian history. President and dictator Nicolae Ceausescu took a helicopter, and flew away from his headquarters, as the revolution broke out and he lost power. Over the next two days he was hunted and finally executed by the firing squad.
The movie covers the concept of the revolution… particularly at that exact time… the mindset of the people that revolted against the president… and in particular… in a small town… in the rurals of Romania. Supposedly, the history books say that at that moment… all of Romania revolted and spoke out as one against communism.
The movie asks a very simple question. Was this true? Its about a talkshow host… who lives in this small town.. and asks his fellow men… neighbors… on national tv. Did this revolution happen in their town? Apparently everyone around him says… yes… they were in the town square, and remember fighting security and protesting against communism.
But… with a few very simple questions… things are proven to be quite different.
Quite simply… the movie covers the idea that… how can a culture full of drunks, partiers, uneducated people, cowards, and selfish fools… who have no interest in anything other than their own arguing, and are completely unorganized AS A CULTURE (yes Romania is this way in many methods)… possibly get together at that exact moment? In fact… half of the people at the city square on that day showed up 15 min. AFTER the helicopter with the president left… AFTER the revolution. So how can there be a revolution in the city if the people came after communism died? Also many of the people who showed up it turns out were just getting out of the bar early in the morning… and happened to cross the city square….
Some of the people say they remember arguing with security officers from the secret police! Fighting them… being beaten. The talk show host… asks if he knows who was this “security officer� it turns out it’s a personal friend… as it’s a small town… and he’s a local business owner…. And everyone knows him. In fact… they all hang out on weekends.. and have been childhood buddies. So… could a childhood friend…whom you KNOW works for the security… seeing you drunk on your way across the city square… really beat you? How could he just beat the shit out of you for revolting? When he himself was drunk on the job as well.
Others remember the clock… showing that they came BEFORE the revolution… they say they know there were there protesting because they distinctly remember being there 12 minutes BEFORE Bucharest showed the news… and they KNEW that it was time to protest… that communism needed to die. The counter argument? In typical Romanian fashion… the clock is behind by about 24 minutes… and has been slow for as long as it has been on top of that tower… as the maintenance is always absent…
This movie was hilarious… and it really shows Romanian culture… all the dirty bad sides of it. The bad infrastructure… the laziness… the poor organization… yet… the cleverness and assertiveness of Romanian people. Unfortunately for someone to really appreciate this movie they need to come from a background that understands what it means to come from communism, war, or to at least know something about how poor countries operate… well to REALLY enjoy it. Maybe others could… but I don’t thik they could really get 100% out of the movie… most of the stuff I found myself laughing out loud at… were very subtle Romanian cultural inuendos… that you’d have to know about Romania…