Surveillance
The resurgence in Romanian cinema has followed a steadfast tract of nightmare-nostalgia with the Stalinist Ceausescu regime. Every glance seems to be backward, a troubled, furtive peek to see if anyone is following you. As a police officer shadows his young target, suspected of a casual pot habit, continuity with a police-state past and a dangerous habit of watching become more than a little pronounced. Interpellation is still a paramount concern among the post-Soviet bloc: the target subject exists only insofar as he is acknowledged by the (perhaps unwitting) ideological apparatus, on a charge the cop thinks is bullshit. Like in previous Romanian films 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, we as viewers feel as furtive observers of the transgressive. Bureaucracy in these films functions as exactly the opposite of popular American cinema and TV serials such as “CSI,” where logical systems and methodologies are propped up and hailed – behold the power of our ratiocination. In Romania this kind of logic is a cause for mourning, even after the oppressive state has been removed.
