Radu Muntean’s “Întregalde” like the Land Rover in the film that is trapped in the mud is spinning its wheels and not really progressing. I was expecting more from Muntean with 6 films under his belt.
Three friends head out from Bucharest to deliver food packages in the remote Romanian countryside. Their Land Rover becomes badly mired on a remote logging road thanks to errant directions by the senile Kente (Luca Sabin) they pick up wandering on the road. There is some tension as the group splits up looking for help as darkness sets in and temperatures start to decline. Will some dubious Roma’s sodomize one of the girls who goes to get help in their unplated rust bucket of a truck or is it simply deep-seated Romanian distrust of the Roma’s? And how charitable is this trio when one of them sees Kente holding one of the girl’s scarf saying how soft it is. One of them now says you can now wipe your ass with it.
The story is hardly dramatic and there does not appear to be any hidden message of note woven into the plot. The film was shot in the Apuseni Mountains in Transylvania and is really the star of the movie. The landscape in late fall is ominous. A good deal of the film is shot in darkness which is more annoying than artistic. A brief glimpse of rural poverty is jolting.
I have no qualms with the acting and Luca Sabin as Kente steals the show as a senile “Forrest Gump” as one of the trio nicknames him.
You can see the trailer here https://vimeo.com/648701704.
It will be opening March 4th in Canadian theatres.
RKS Film Rating 65/100.
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