Film review: Periferic (Outbound)

Periferic (Outbound)

Directed by: Bogdan Apetri

Starring: Ana Ularu, Mimi Branescu, Andi Vasluianu

On at: New Cinema of the Romanian Director (at Romanian Peasant’s Museum, with English subtitles), Cinema City Cotroceni, Movieplex Cinema Plaza, Studio Cinema, Cinema City Sun Plaza, in Cluj at Cinema City and in Arad at Cinema City

A much anticipated film, based on a script co-written by Cristian Mungiu, the director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and directed by Bogdan Apetri, a Romanian who has spent his career in the United States, Outbound (original title: Periferic) has finally reached Romanian screens. As is already tradition with Romanian new wave titles, the film has so far been very well received at international festivals, but has yet to pass the test of the local audience.

Corina Dumitrescu

The picture tells the story of Matilda, a female prisoner given a day’s leave from jail, who tries to use her day of liberty to put her life in order. In the 24 hours she is given to attend her mother’s funeral, Matilda meets up with the three most important men in her life: her estranged brother, her violent former boyfriend and father to her eight-year-old child and, finally, the son with whom she plans to flee the country.

Matilda is a rough character who almost never smiles throughout the movie’s total running time of 87 minutes. It seems that life has been hard for this woman – or maybe she’s made the wrong choices, as one of the movie’s lines eventually suggests. The protagonist is the kind of person everybody has known since childhood, but was too afraid too interact with – a sort of female neighborhood thug who was perhaps made such by circumstances. Everyone in her life rejects her on her 24-hour leave: her brother and sister-in-law, her abusive ex-boyfriend and pimp and even her own son – yet the woman never gives up and continues to follow the plan that seemed perfect in her mind, in spite of all the obstacles put in her way. However, in spite of her past and dubious methods, Matilda is a predominantly positive character – you may even find yourself hoping for her plans to succeed.

The film’s title in Romanian, Periferic (Peripheral), refers to the marginal world that the story takes place in. It is a title that offers the viewer the comfort of not being part of the presented world and, hence, not affected by the crude realism depicted. The Romanian outskirts of the film remind the viewer of Slumdog Millionaire, an association perhaps noticeable with the appearance of Matilda’s son – but this parallel easily disappears as, unlike its Hollywood-like counterpart, the world of the Romanian film is inescapable and being “outbound” from it seems truly impossible. More likely, the film may be compared with Florin Serban’s If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle, whose atmosphere is just as claustrophobic. Rhis resemblance may be no coincidence, since the movie’s directors both studied film in the US, at Columbia University.

The young Ana Ularu, portraying the hardened Matilda, is truly amazing. The beautiful 25-year-old manages to turn herself into a worn-down, sturdy and determined ex-con. Other parts are played by actors who crop up frequently in new Romanian pictures: Andi Vasluianu as Matilda’s brother, Mimi Branescu as her former boyfriend and Ioana Flora as her sister-in-law.

All in all, Outbound depicts a short fragment of an outcast’s life, with an ending left open to the viewer’s interpretation. It is a Romanian new wave movie definitely worth seeing for both its great performances and the director’s subtle construction of the film.

corina.dumitrescu@business-review.ro

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