Review of Nae Caranfil`s DO NOT LEAN OUT THE WINDOW (Romania/France)
Less than three years after Romania’s brutal dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown and executed, Nae Caranfil released a look back at the waning days of communism that, while comical, differs from other such films in being neither absurd nor tragically noble. Caranfil, considered the best Romanian director of the 1990s, takes aim at the youth raised under communism who will be charged with building a free and democratic society. What he finds is a bunch of loutish men who can think of little besides sex and adolescent girls who are feeling the pull of freedom, erotic and otherwise. The film’s new, correctly translated title in English (it was known as SUNDAYS ON LEAVE during its brief appearance in English-speaking theaters) is certainly a caution about the future of Romania, but it has a literal reference in the first scene of the film. A small unit of young, inexperienced Romanian soldiers are standing alongside a train track chaotically running drills when a train approaches. Some soldiers salute as the train passes. The last window is open, and a young woman is leaning out looking off into the horizon. She is Cristina (Natalie Bonifay), a much-desired high school girl who is leaving her provincial town for the promise of Bucharest. The film then reels back in time to show how she ended up on the train. Caranfil, who also wrote the screenplay, sets up a sequence of events, and in RASHOMON fashion, presents them from the points of view of Cristina, The High School Girl; Dino (“Like The Flintstones?”) Staroste (George Alexandru), The Actor; and Horatiu (Marius Stanescu), The Soldier. Each of these characters is using the others for sex and other purposes, and the worlds they inhabit all seem increasingly infected with counter-revolutionary thoughts and actions, from the circulation of birth control pills in opposition to the regime’s directive to procreate to having a sound-effects tape from Radio Free Europe substituted for another one in Dino’s play. DO NOT LEAN OUT THE WINDOW is a boisterous film that looks at the seismic shift in Romanian society with the cautious joy of a caged animal set free. It is a crucial precursor to the revelatory Romanian New Wave that should not be missed. (1993, 103 min) MF
