“Bacalaureat” is one of those deeply intelligent movies that makes you think. A lot. About your condition, about life,guilt, the gap between generations, ethics, morals, identity, purpose, good or bad, right or wrong, choices we make in life…
An array of thoughts that leaves you wondering if it’s just you. And you even have the answer. It’s not. It’s a whole bleak depressed generation, maybe more than one.
The idealisation of the western lifestyle, the romantic vision that everywhere is better than there. If you haven’t seen the movie I recommend it (prepare to be depressed). As many of the post communist Romanian movies, this one makes no exception: it will transpose you in the reality of a Romania that is exactly how I know it. Raw, tough, challenging and aggressive. There is no place for the weak in there. Weaknesses are spotted and punished.
Adrian Titieni makes a big role. His act is honest, simple, yet so complex and unique. It feels he makes the whole movie, you can feel the power of the character, the painful desire to live another life through the life of his daughter, pushing both the wife and the daughter to the limits of their own will. His intentions are the best, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions ( or heaven?, something similar, you get the point).
Lia Bugnar, she is equally forceful in the role of the depressed mother and Maria Dragus is representing all of us at that age.
I hope you will enjoy this movie as much as I did.
Vizionare placuta!
