Il Tesoro

Excellent film and a great script, relevant and fresh. The simplicity of it someone had called-out is its very strength, and if it carries some scenes in real time a la Béla Tarr, it is part suspense mechanism for the audience fantasies to play out, as well as to open up space for the viewer to contemplate their own values being addressed.

In it's sparing dialogue (suited to the social air density being portrayed), and not unlike a Roy Anderson film, each point of conversation is another clue or symbol threaded into the moral tableau performed over the course of the film. It deals with profound issues with understated situational comedy, leaving all conclusions up to the viewer. The acting deserves another notable mention, naturalistic and effortlessly comedic.

We've seen it as a group German, Swiss, American and were all delighted with the ending neither one of us guessed! Keen for the next film from this director.

I spent $7 to rent this on Amazon, based on flamboyant critical praise. The trailer looked promising, like a deadpan comedy. But it wasn't anything like I expected. It couldn't have been slower, duller, plodding. I appreciate the low-key naturalistic style that is European cinema, but in this case, it wasn't shedding much light on any internal journey. And being halted as a comedy? I often marvel when reviewers claim something is a comedy. Why? Because there may be slight nuances of humannature's foibles? There was not a moment that I was amused in a heightened comedicway. The basic plot line - that a neighbor enlists another neighborwith a possible buried treasure - takes near 90 minutes for negligible plot development. I like slow, non-Hollywood movies, but this was really SLOW. And reviewers hailed the transformative payoff in the last two minutes. But for me it was too little, too late. Not recommended. Just plodding.

Just saw this on HBO. Not feeling like either wanting my money back or wanting my time back. The movie was OK. OK in the exact sense depicted in the plot. Nothing less, but nothing more.

I am trying to watch all Romanian movies, and the good news is the level of acting is improving dramatically (pseudo-pun intended) and this movie excels in that area.

All the cast is performing well, the lines are good and appropriate for the moment, I would have preferred to not be able to guess each and every line that was about to be said, but that means that it was all natural and just right. Not often you see a movie were the next action and the next line simply makes sense. Nothing unexpected, but it has a magic of its own like that. In most movies you anticipate what you would have said (the logical line) or what you would have done in a certain context, and it never happens like that, and you think "man, this was stupid". Not in this movie. Here everything makes sense and is exactly as expected.

Why a 6 then? For the exact reason above. No surprises. And because it's classified as comedy, and I don't even recall the slightest smile on my face for the whole duration of the film. The only surprise in the movie was there was no surprise whatsoever. The ending has a small twist, but far-far from what could've compensated for the rest.

A movie that's worth seeing, but only for the experience, not for its intrinsic value.

Corneliu Porumboiu's fifth feature could well be his worst too. He just follows the usual modern arthouse genre and show a story that is for mainstream audience. The script and making are way too shallow.

"A man makes his own problems; they don't descend from heaven." Cornel (Corneliu Cozmei)

The two heroes of the strange but lovable Romanian comedy, The Treasure, do create their problems, mainly digging for treasure in a backyard with the help of Cornel and his metal detector. Although the two hapless diggers are in serious need of cash flow, there is something mock heroic in their haphazard plans that are bound to go wrong from the get go. Not even to say the possibility of Cornel blackmailing them for breaking Romanian found-treasure laws.

Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale tells of the dire consequences when men try to find easy gold, and Treasure of Sierra Madre has a similarly fateful trajectory. Beckett's Waiting for Godot also comes to mind as the search has a simplicity, frustration, and sure-to fail feel to it. However, The Treasure has a lighter tone, not hilarious by any means, but aiming to take this goofy quest and make it a modern morality tale with Keystone-Cops flavor.

The "takes" are long and slow with an emphasis on establishing, diminishing, and revealing character through conversation in an everyday mode that veritably shouts out the inevitable upending. The pace is leisurely if not downright slow—you know you're almost in real time as you watch them slowly dig for the treasure. The occasional long shots seem to emphasize the long-shot stupidity of the enterprise.

It's the ending that will wake you from your torpor to wide-eyed wonder. Enough said.