Review: ‘Sieranevada,’ a film by Cristi Puiu

by Andrew Parker

Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu’s family drama Sieranevada asks a lot of the audience with its claustrophobic feeling and nearly three hour long running time, but it’s so observant and realistic that anyone who has been in a similarly awkward and unpleasant situation to the one being depicted will already know more or less what’s in store. This sprawling dramedy (which was Romania’s selection for Best Foreign Film Oscar contention, but didn’t make the short list) about a dysfunctional Bucharest family trying to get through a memorial in a tiny apartment where everyone hates each other comes densely packed with characters, but the tone, writing, direction, and performances all fit the mood perfectly.

The film begins in a place of conflict, as Lary (Mimi Branescu) drives across crowded city streets with his wife (C?t?lina Moga) to get to a memorial service for his late father (who died forty days earlier) at his mother’s apartment. What should be a day of mourning for them really seems like just any other day where the couple bickers about a costume that Lary incorrectly picked out for his daughter and when they’ll find time to get their grocery shopping done. Once they arrive at the family get together, however, those everyday squabbles seem almost quaint compared to what the rest of the family has to put up with while dealing with each other.

Lary’s sister, Sandra (Judith State), is coming apart at the seams, dealing with an infant, getting into heated, fruitless arguments with her staunchly Communist aunt (Tatiana Iekel), and wondering if her husband (Rolando Matsangos) might be cheating on her. A 25-year old niece (Ilona Brezoianu) inexplicably thinks it’s an okay time to bring a vomiting, inebriated friend over to sleep off her drunk. The niece’s brother, Sebi (Marin Grigore), is an integral part of the ceremonies that day, but he won’t stop spouting 9/11 conspiracy theories to anyone within earshot, made worse by Sandra’s husband goading him on because he thinks it’s funny. Everyone just wants to pay their respects, eat, and get out of there as quickly as possible, but the priest is running late and mom won’t let anyone eat or leave until everything is done to the ceremonial letter. After the priest has come and gone, things grow even more complicated when marital infidelities are brought to the surface and everyone ends up in a worse mood than the already uneasy feeling everyone brought to the party to begin with.

With Sieranevada, writer-director Puiu, who previously made the more fantastical and downbeat The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, has created the remarkably rare kind of family drama that feels sometimes punishingly realistic while maintaining an astute sense of humour and dramatic purpose. Sieranevada has a multitude of stories to tell across its epic length, but they all dovetail and enhance one another expertly because the audience feels locked in with the family from the opening frames. Starting with a lengthy shot of a simple street corner where Lary can’t seem to find a good parking space, Puiu lets the audience know that they’re in for a lighthearted look at things that try human patience, and that he’s going to frame these situations in a comedic light whenever appropriate.

There are only two moments of Sieranevada that don’t take place in or around the apartment where the memorial is taking place and both involve Lary leaving for a moment to deal with parking situations. The first seems stressful for him, but it’s there to set up that things are going to get worse. The second (about two hours into the film, just as the characters are at a boiling point and are ready to explode) starts in a bad place, but quickly grows into the most cathartic, loving moment of the film. The rest of the film finds Puiu trying admirably to keep up with all his stories. Often, all Puiu has to do is place his cinematographer in a hallway and simply pan between various rooms where different stories are unfolding and overlapping. Some scenes will be lengthy and revolve around a single conversation in a room among a small group of people, but just like one acts at a party once liquor starts flowing and boredom begins to set in, a character will move to a different space and a different conversation.

Doors only slam when necessary and about as often as voices are raised. Everyone wants to talk politics (the most toxic of all familial conversation starters) since they’re getting together mere days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. The veneer of civility these family members try to keep around each other is enough to trigger an anxiety attack in some from how real to such an experience this feels. It’s an exercise in discomfort, but one with a degree of relatability and good will that many audience members will instantly recognize. Three hours of increasingly heated small talk and family strife is a lot to ask an audience to sit through, but Puiu knows that such a situation in real life would be a lot longer and a lot more patience testing to the characters caught up in all of it. It might be a familiar tale dragged out to a long running time and boasting a lot more subtleties than a Hollywood studio picture would afford the same topic, but overall Sieranevada will stand as one of the best examples of a dysfunctional family put to film.

Sieranevada opens at TIFF Bell Lightbox on Friday, January 13, 2017.

Check out the trailer for Sieranevada:

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