Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time

Based on a famous novel of Romanian writer Marin Preda, is full of fine linguistic humor and mirrors very well a disturbed and ravished post-WW2 peasant society, torn between right and wrong, the vanity of the young and backward-looking of the elderly, old and new, moral and immoral and between two antagonistic political regimes. The black-and-white (how else) picture adds up to the nostalgia and historical feel of otherwise a pure social drama.

Awesome actors, awesome details.

But it's a disaster from lightning and grading point of view. I never saw something sooo bad in my life. After 30 mins I had headaches. So annoying to try to focus your eyes on a subject and to understand what is happening. Looks like this was the proof that romanian cinematography is dead.

"Morometii" is a very good dramatization of Marin Preda's novel, depicting the life of a typical peasant family in rural Romania during the late 1940's.

The "film noir" image is not for everyone, but I find that it depicts perfectly the dark times the family was going through. It is also in line with the prequel "Morometii 1978" which was also shot in black&white for the same reason.

The actors are some of the best Romania has ever produced, acting is incredible and the storyline very very good. Highly recommended!

Highly anticipated and greeted with high expectations as well, the movie delivered what it supposed to do... the sequel to the better first part. However, it was a missed chance for the director Gulea to deliver another masterpiece that would have become his artistic testament: a richer post war political context, characters reaching their maturity and a rich artistic potential given by a whole spectrum of directions that the movie could have turn to. However, this was also the pitfall of this movie. The director become artistically greedy trying to cover too much of the artistic scope and did not concentrate on covering well certain aspects that could have defined the movie: transformation of Moromete, the relation with Niculae, his son, the impact of political drama unfolding after the war or the never changing peasant wisdom so well anchored in the Romanian culture. Everyone forgot that the writer main character was the Romanian peasant and his infinite wisdom, portrayed by Moromete and not vice-versa. Gulea choose instead to cover all of themes, resulting in weak presentations of all of them, forging forgettable characters that didn't impress nor amazed the audience, sacrificing art for a social drama documentary and betraying the village for more of a urban context, contrasting with the work of the writer Preda and his intentions... Not to be misunderstood, Gulea is a very good director but he got trapped in by his own ambitions and past. For once, the director knows that this will be his last chance to create something big for cinematography (hope I'am wrong...) and he wanted to do it all in ( a poker metaphor). To exemplify, it came to my mind the just released Polish "Cold War" movie that had a more empowering linear narrative...Secondly, Morometii 2 had become a personal revenge. Gulea's father spent many years in the communist prisons and maybe the director felt the need to dive in the political context as a personal duty. I think that Rebengiuc's choice not to act in the second part was a wise move (Malaele delivered also a solid performance)... wondering if with a different director things would have been different. Overall, the movie is a must see, loved it as it continued the story of my childhood book:) People should not compare this with Nunta Muta, Cel mai iubit dintre pamanteni or Rascoala.... it has a different artistic registry...

This movie is directed by an old amateur who has been stuck in time.. This film is dust in the eye.. A black-and-white movie in 2018 ... What a Shame!