Country: Moldova
Title: Queen of
the Gypsies / Табор уходит в небо (1976)
Queen of the Gypsies, which is more evocatively
translated as Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven, is essentially a classical
star-crossed romance with a freestyle Moldovan flavor. Zobar, a horse thief perpetually on the run, and Rada, a
gypsy heartbreaker, are a would-be couple whose pride and independence
undermines their desire for love. Zobar is clever and capable. He steals (but
anything less than a horse is beneath his dignity) and kills liberally,
but he also breaks up fights and takes care of his family. He prefers
to travel alone and treats his caravan as a travelling rest stop. He's a dying
breed, cheated by the landowning horse dealers and hounded by the Russian army,
but confident in his survival prowess even as the number of his compatriots
dwindles. Rada, daughter of a destitute soldier, belongs to another clan and
takes a great deal of joy in exercising her sway over men before dashing the hopes
of even her most rich and powerful suitors. She is less a femme fatale than a
free-spirit infatuated with the open road. Zobar first meets her while dying
from a bullet wound in a particularly verdant grove. She heals him and promptly disappears (a house specialty), leaving Zobar smitten. He determines to possess her, unable
to appreciate that for Rada, like himself, freedom is oxygen, food and water all in one.
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| Love at first sight. |
Queen of the Gypsies has a certain raw primal quality. It's not a
particularly sophisticated or probing psychological study of its doomed lovers, but it relishes the intensity of their emotions with riveting abandon. It works because Moldovan director Emil Loteanu is absolutely on the right wavelength for his subject matter: his imagery is pure rapture sans symbolism or
slavish realism. He lingers, perhaps unfashionably, on beauty: a woman, a
river, a horse, a sunset. He shares the Romani love for color and countryside to
the point where leaves and berries seem to grow over the lens, framing and even
consuming the leads. One can almost feel Loteanu struggling to resolve the
fundamental conflict of interest between clothing and nudity, fabric and skin
as his protagonists, stripping on the bank of a muddy river, prepare to make
love for the first time. It’s genuinely sexy, in a way that popular films have
largely forgotten and art films have largely rejected. Musical numbers, vibrant
though unpolished, are amply strewn throughout the runtime, but since most are
under a minute they are welcome interludes; at once catchy and ephemeral. I know it all sounds indulgent, and if it is, at least it isn't at the audience’s expense; the pacing is so tight and the story so focused. Though a tragedy, this is also
a film to get caught up in, that makes you want to go outside, to travel, to
sing and flirt and fall in love.
Major Directors:
Emil Loteanu
Emil Loteanu
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| Culture clash. |
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