This film was really an eye-opener for me to Romanian culture. The village that the main character, Stephane, visits is incredibly poor and consists of gypsies. It's humbling as a middle class American to watch since the conditions that the characters live in are nothing like I've ever seen before. Sure, there aren't cockroaches in their homes and they aren't starving to death but their homes are shacks without much decor if any. The floors within the homes are dirt instead of wood or tile. In addition to poor living conditions, the community that Isidor lives in seems to be corrupt. In the beginning of the film Isidor is extremely upset that his son has been locked away in jail for no apparent reason. Not only is Isidor upset about this but the entire village of gypsies seems to be disturbed as well. I believe that Isidor and the village of gypsies were disturbed because they felt like there was no justice for their kind. They felt like they were being persecuted solely for the fact that they were gypsies.
Stephane doesn’t speak Romanian but he believes that Isidor will take him to the musician that he seeks out during the entire film. Although Nora Luca wasn’t in the village when he first arrived, Stephane stuck around in hopes that Isidor would eventually take him to her. The atmosphere in the village is extremely hostile and intense. One of the most shocking things I saw in the film was the use of extremely crude language. I was particularly startled by children saying things like, "Eat my cock." At one point early during the film the villagers nearly start a riot in order to convince Isidor to kick Stephane out of the village solely because he is a foreigner and doesn't speak Romanian. The villagers seemed to be convinced that Stephane could be a murderer, kidnapper, or some type of criminal only because he isn't a local. This was hard for me to understand since in America we accept people in our society from all types of different backgrounds and nationalities.
The villagers didn’t initially accept Stephane, especially a young woman named Sabina. However, as the film progresses Sabina and Stephane become friends and eventually become romantic with one another. Isidor, Stephane, and Sabina all travel together from one village to another partying and recording music from local musicians. While Stephane did enjoy the music from the local musicians, he never accomplishes his goal of finding the musician that he originally came to seek out. This was likely because of the language barrier between Stephane and Isidor as they spoke different languages.
The final scene was perhaps my favorite scene of the entire movie. Throughout the film Stephane seeks out local gypsies musicians and records them on cassettes. During this time he was an outsider. He was only there for the music, not to become one of the gypsies. For example, Stephane and Sabina went to a village where they recorded a group of local musicians and an elderly woman who sang a song about a man killing his brother. The song brought Sabina to tears since the story “hit home” to her as stories like that aren’t uncommon in her culture. But while Sabina was crying Stephane was smiling. He was still an outsider and was only there to record music because that was his passion. However, in the final scene we see him destroy his prized cassettes and bury them. He then proceeded to put a vodka bottle on the grave. Sabina, who in the scene previously was devastated by Isidor’s son murder, appeared to be extremely pleased by Stephane’s actions. I believe this is because the smashing of the cassettes signified that Stephane was no longer there for the music. He was now one of the gypsies and no longer an outsider.
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