California Dreamin' (film)
Encyclopedia
California Dreamin' is a 2007
2007 in film
This is a list of major films released in 2007.-Top grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2007...

 Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n film by Cristian Nemescu
Cristian Nemescu
Cristian Nemescu was a Romanian film director.Nemescu was born in Bucharest. He graduated from the Academy for Theater and Film in 2003. During his final year in the academy he made a short film, Story From The Third Block Entrance, that received awards at the NYU International Student Film...

. It won the Prix un certain regard at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival
2007 Cannes Film Festival
The 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the sixtieth, ran from 16 to 27 May 2007. Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights opened the festival, and Denys Arcand's The Age of Ignorance closed...

. It also picked up the Iris Award for Best Film, the Audience Award and the Canvas Award at the Brussels European Film Festival 2007. The film is also sometimes called Endless in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Nesfârșit being Romanian for "endless".
The director died before editing was completed. Therefore, in the released film, his working materials are cut to 155 minutes.

Plot


The plot is based on a true story: in 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a train containing America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

n radar equipment required in Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

, guarded by a small troop of American and Romanian
Romanian Armed Forces
The Land Forces, Air Force and Naval Forces of Romania are collectively known as the Romanian Armed Forces...

 soldiers, went through Romania and was stopped for four days in a small village on the Bărăgan Plain
Baragan Plain
The Bărăgan Plain is a steppe plain in south-eastern Romania. It makes up much of the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain. The region is known for its black soil and a rich humus, and is mostly a cereal-growing area....

 because some customs papers were missing, even though the train had been authorised to pass through Romania by its Prime Minister.

In the movie, the train is stopped several days in the village of Căpâlniţa by the chief of the train station, Doiaru, who is corrupt and routinely steals goods from the trains which go through his station. He forces the train to move onto a secondary track until the paperwork is produced. The Americans try in vain to get the Romanian government to sort out the paperwork, but the responsibility is passed from one ministry to the other and as a result, their departure is delayed.

Periodic flashbacks take the audience back to Doiaru's childhood, when his parents, who were factory owners, awaited the coming of the Americans at the end of World War 2. As his father was considered a German supporter, Doiaru's family dreaded the arrival of the Russians. However, the Russians arrived first and they took away Doiaru's parents and he never saw them again. The first Americans to arrive in the village after the war are the very soldiers on the train in 1999.

The mayor of the village tries to make the Americans' stay enjoyable and invites them to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the village, even though such a feast was celebrated only a few months before. Doiaru's daughter, Monica, develops a crush on an American soldier, but as she knows no English, she uses the help of a local geek, Andrei, who is in love with her.

The mayor and the rest of the villagers are incited into revolting against Doiaru and start a riot, during the course of which the train leaves and Doiaru dies.

An ending note says that the radar was installed two hours after the ceasefire with Yugoslavia was signed, and the final scene shows Monica and Andrei meeting in Bucharest in 2004.

Further Readings

Chivoiu, Oana (2011) “Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin' (Endless): A Cinematic Radiography of a National Dream”, in: manycinemas 1, 54-65 Online pdf

External links

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