Page 145 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 145
cinematic road to a redefinition of the balkans
ism in relation to subsequent results, which the film recounts with its own
means in an implicit retrograde technique.
The film presents the story, which culminates in a conversation in a lo-
cal television studio in the provincial town of Vaslui east of Bucharest. The
owner of the TV station and host of the talk show, one in the same person
by the name of Jderescu, together with the interlocutors – the retired man
Piscoci and the professor of history and drunkard Manescu – are trying to
answer the above mentioned question, whether revolution did really hap-
pen or not in their town on 22nd December 1989? Through the stumbling
conversation between the participants of the TV chat, among the viewers’
telephone calls, amidst an increasingly bizarre atmosphere the problem ul-
timately boils down to the question of whether that particular day did any-
body really demonstrate before the twelfth hour and eight minutes or were
there demonstrations only after that hour? As it is generally known, at the
said time national television broadcasted to the citizens of Romania the im-
age of the helicopter, with which Ceauşescu and his wife left the scene of
the first decisive act of the Romanian revolution against socialism. Manes-
cu insists throughout the conversation that he and two other teachers from
his school had in fact a quarter of an hour before the twelfth hour protest-
ed against the established local government and the Party. The pensioner
Piscoci freely admits that he had gone to demonstrate only after a crucial
moment as many others did. Through a series of funny incidents during
the conversation, the problem becomes increasingly challenging because
Manescu cannot prove that he really had been at the square, where the
would-be revolution took place. His two colleagues, who supposedly were
there with him, had died in the meantime, two other potential witnesses
(the door attendant and an employee of the Securitate), who phone in to the
TV show, both have uncertain memory. The manner in which this chat is
depicted is very straightforward, almost in a style of a filmed theatre as the
film camera identifies with the angle of the TV camera, leaving no doubt
that it confronts the problem of truth, which is about to be revealed or con-
cealed. The outcome of the whole chat is finally confusing, it turns out that
it is impossible to know whether in the town really was a revolution or not.
Even if the revolution were there, it would have seemed to be primarily the
source of the confusing rhetoric, which retrospectively projected into his-
tory empty meanings, open for a legitimization of the supposed revolution-
aries and other participants in the events. Conversely, it remains doubtful
whether these people really did anything revolutionary and if so, it was fur-
143
ism in relation to subsequent results, which the film recounts with its own
means in an implicit retrograde technique.
The film presents the story, which culminates in a conversation in a lo-
cal television studio in the provincial town of Vaslui east of Bucharest. The
owner of the TV station and host of the talk show, one in the same person
by the name of Jderescu, together with the interlocutors – the retired man
Piscoci and the professor of history and drunkard Manescu – are trying to
answer the above mentioned question, whether revolution did really hap-
pen or not in their town on 22nd December 1989? Through the stumbling
conversation between the participants of the TV chat, among the viewers’
telephone calls, amidst an increasingly bizarre atmosphere the problem ul-
timately boils down to the question of whether that particular day did any-
body really demonstrate before the twelfth hour and eight minutes or were
there demonstrations only after that hour? As it is generally known, at the
said time national television broadcasted to the citizens of Romania the im-
age of the helicopter, with which Ceauşescu and his wife left the scene of
the first decisive act of the Romanian revolution against socialism. Manes-
cu insists throughout the conversation that he and two other teachers from
his school had in fact a quarter of an hour before the twelfth hour protest-
ed against the established local government and the Party. The pensioner
Piscoci freely admits that he had gone to demonstrate only after a crucial
moment as many others did. Through a series of funny incidents during
the conversation, the problem becomes increasingly challenging because
Manescu cannot prove that he really had been at the square, where the
would-be revolution took place. His two colleagues, who supposedly were
there with him, had died in the meantime, two other potential witnesses
(the door attendant and an employee of the Securitate), who phone in to the
TV show, both have uncertain memory. The manner in which this chat is
depicted is very straightforward, almost in a style of a filmed theatre as the
film camera identifies with the angle of the TV camera, leaving no doubt
that it confronts the problem of truth, which is about to be revealed or con-
cealed. The outcome of the whole chat is finally confusing, it turns out that
it is impossible to know whether in the town really was a revolution or not.
Even if the revolution were there, it would have seemed to be primarily the
source of the confusing rhetoric, which retrospectively projected into his-
tory empty meanings, open for a legitimization of the supposed revolution-
aries and other participants in the events. Conversely, it remains doubtful
whether these people really did anything revolutionary and if so, it was fur-
143
