Senatorul Melcilor (Snails for the Senator)
Mircea Daneliuc
Romania
With five films to his credit since 1989, Mircea Daneliuc is by far the most prolific filmmaker in Romania today. Having established himself as one of the country's leading directors, he had to contend - at least while Ceausescu was in power - with an iron-fisted regime which left him no alternative but the use of subtle hints and allegories to describe the reality around him.
Since the change of regime, Daneliuc has radically changed his view, reaching a degree of virulence which seems to have earned him more than a few enemies at home. And indeed, it seems that with every new film of his, the opinions of the Romanian media are ever more divided between those who consider him an irresponsible critic of and those who feel he simply documents the facts as they are, no more and no less.
The argument erupted with renewed vigor when Daneliuc's Cannes entry, Senatorul Melcilor (Snails for the Senator) was released in Bucharest and again when the film was selected for Cannes (although stagnely enough it was rejected by Berlin this year). Daneliuc himself declined at this point to release any more statements to the press about his film. "The film should speak for itself", he said. The one thing he did specify earlier is that he had chosen the snails as the senator's dish, not only for their culinary virtues, but also because he felt that Romania is moving forward at a snail's pace.
In Senatorul Melcilor, Daneliuc pursues his frontal attack on the state of things at home. Once again, this is a fierce political satire. The film revolves around a new type of political hero, this time a senator from the capital city who visits a forgotten village at the other end of the country to open a new hydraulic power station which, according to his flowery and bombastic prose, will put Romania technologically on par with the West, while simlutaneously showing the national concern for safe, clean energy.
The only trouble is that times may have changed in Romania, but politicians have not. The senator, who expects to get some publicity out of his visit without too much effort, would like to be seen as the benevolent do-gooder whose dearest wish in life is to serve the people voting for him. In truth, he'd rather see them solve their own problems, stop bothering him or expecting answers to their questions particularly on the delicate issue of the gypsies who have settled next to the village, whose whose presence is anathema to the rest of the inhabitants. The senator wants to enjoy the resh mountain air, to taste all the delicacies of the village and exploit all the privileges of his poistion. The village, trained by the old system to please their leaders or else, shower the guest with gifts and rush to fulfill each and everyone of his whims, hoping that in exchange, he'll put a good word for them. And when the senator says he'd like snails for his meal, the entire village goes out in the field to look for snails. In the process, all the old emnities flare up again, the hatred for the gypsies erupts furiously and the festive visit turns into an incendiary event and a total catastrophy.
Daneliuc's sense of humour, bent on escalating everyday occurences into hallucinatory ironies, is blacker than black. While there is no visible narrative link between his last three films, it appears that The Conjugal Bed, Aceasta Lehamite and now Snails for the Senator now form trilogy portraying the state of things in post-Ceausescu Romania. But while some of the critics wonder if this is the way they want their country portrayed, others rush to Daneliuc's defence, quoting Picasso's answer when attacked for painting "Guernica" the way he did. "I did not paint this," he answered, "the Germans did". Edna Fainaru
Prod co: Alpha Films International
Dir/scr: Mircea Daneliuc
Ph: Doru Mitran, Petre Petrescu;
Art dir: Petre Veniamin
Costumes: Andrea Hasnas
Mus: Petre Margineanu
Cast: Cecilia Barbora, Doru Visan, Florin Zamfirescu, Viorel Comanici
Running time: 104 mins
International sales: Romania Film
