Marilena from P7
Encyclopedia
Marilena from P7 is a medium-length
Romania
n film
, directed by Cristian Nemescu
. First released in 2006, it was also nominated the same year for the Semaine de la critique section of the 59th Cannes Film Festival
.
Being Cristian Nemescu's last completed project, the film stars Mădălina Ghiţescu as Marilena and Gabriel Huian as Andrei. Originally, the film was intended to be used as an exercise, and was not supposed to be longer than seven minutes. In the end, the project evolved to an unusual length of 45 minutes; the film's approach also turned from comedy
to teenage love. Reception from the public was favorable – it impressed through its unitary view and the way the screenplay
, picture
and sound combine together into a new and organic way, by using innovative, unusual techniques.
, a 13-year-old boy, Andrei (Gabriel Huian), together with some of his friends, watches the prostitutes' show every night from a rooftop and how they are being taken by drivers. The boy falls in love with one of the girls, called Marilena (Mădălina Ghiţescu), and finds out that he needs a decent sum of money in order to approach her. Thus, he steals his father's (Gabriel Spahiu) salary and goes to the prostitutes' meeting place. Marilena's pimp
(Andi Vasluianu) is also present, and only agrees to send Marilena and another prostitute with the boy to a nearby pub, where the Rom Elvis is singing (played by the singer Elvis Romano, who translated Elvis Presley
's lyrics into his own language). The prostitutes play with Andrei, telling him that he needs a car in order to date them, then they leave. The boy asks Marilena for her phone number, and she writes something in his hand.
Andrei sends a dedication for "Marilena from P7", to the local radio station. The prostitute is in an old man's house, listening to the radio, and the song is Are You Lonesome Tonight?
, sung by Elvis Presley.
Among her clients, Marilena falls in love with a man, nicknamed Giani (Cătălin Paraschiv). One night, however, she spots Giani in his car in front of a store, accompanied by another woman, and becomes very discouraged.
Andrei finds a way to get hold of a car and plans to steal his father's trolleybus. He manages to do so, together with his friends. His father sees him and starts following the boys with another driver, his colleague. Arriving at the prostitutes' meeting place, the boys cannot find Marilena. Andrei recognizes Giani's car parked in front of block P7, so he goes in.
Marilena and Giani were in fact in her apartment; the girl goes to the restroom for a minute. Andrei manages to sneak into the apartment, and watches how, while still talking to Giani, Marilena cuts her jugular vein
. After realizing what had happened, Giani becomes frightened and runs away; the pimp sees him leaving in a rush, so he goes to the apartment to see what happened. Meanwhile, Andrei goes into the room and looks down at Marilena who is lying down, with blood spilled over her. The news about Marilena's suicide spread fast around the neighborhood.
Initially the film was planned as a short fiction, the project evolving during 2005. At the time, Nemescu also had planned what would later become the feature film
California Dreamin', impossible to film at that moment, deciding that Marilena from P7 could prove a useful exercise for both director and actors. Thus the screenplay was rewritten and filming started with a very reduced budget of only US $
14,000, which was collected by Nemescu by participating at various film festivals, with older short fictions. During development, however, the film received new funds, though still modest ones, thus the actors and a part of the team accepted to work for free.
Filming also took place in 2005, near the marketplace of the Bucharest neighborhood Rahova
. The chosen area raised a few difficulties related to safety. However, the production benefited from its picturesque view, rendering the scenography and the original music unnecessary. The omnipresent manele
also found their way into the movie, as background music.
For a long period of time the project was entitled Trolley Blues; Cristian Nemescu gave up this title, worrying that there might be a large discrepancy between the equivocal name and the actual, very direct content of the movie.
, and the use of hand-held filming.
The film's music and sound was also thoroughly post-processed by the project's sound designer, Andrei Toncu, to improve the quality of the recordings, because the budget did not allow for complex equipment to be used, and for creative interest. The movie's background music has reduced volume, following the emotional evolution of the characters—Toncu combining the background music (recorded with, or without intention) and a series of effects characteristic to electronic music
and musique concrète
. However, a few distinct moments can be observed in the film's music, either composed by Andrei Toncu (Andrei imagining stealing the trolleybus), or already existing recordings, edited so that they would integrate into the movie's atmosphere (Elvis Presley's dedication is dynamically equalized
to suggest the shift from one radio to another). Another scene in which multiple layers of sound were used was the radio show heard in Giani's car about the breeding of Memestra brassicae
butterflies.
and Corneliu Porumboiu
's 12:08 East of Bucharest
) and was nominated for the Semaine de la critique section of the French festival.
The Romanian premiere took place on June 4, 2006 at the Transylvania International Film Festival, in Cluj-Napoca
. In Bucharest, a first display of the movie was organized on September 8, 2006, in a square established for this purpose on Calea Rahovei Street. The public, as well as the critics from the country, received the movie very well, but the difficulty caused by the movie's unusual duration only allowed for the movie to be on display on a few other occasions. The same problem was encountered when the movie was sent to film festivals outside Romania, being either rejected due to the impossibly of being included in any of the standard categories or included as a short fiction (for example, at Brooklyn).
In the summer of 2006, Nemescu also started the production ofCalifornia Dreamin' . The filming took place in the June-August interval. By the end of August, the film was nearing its completion; on August 24, 2006, however, Nemescu and Andrei Toncu (sound engineer for the new project as well) died in a car accident in Bucharest. Following the accident, the Romanian public, as well as those from abroad, offered wider attention to the productions of the two cineasts, including Marilena from P7, their first notable success. One year after the accident, the event was commemorated in the country through various displays, public meetings and debates. On August 24, 2007, Marilena from P7 had its premiere at Stockholm during the second Romanian Film Days. Romanian people, from the diaspora, as well as Swedish spectators, were present.
Marilena from P7 also attracted the critics' attention due to its use of explicit verbal and visual content. Cristian Nemescu said that this kind of scenes were a necessarily element for the realism of the movie, declaring himself a partisan of explicit content.
The film continues to be appreciated for its experimental nature, its camera angles and montage elements being treated in an unusual manner, while the fiction elements of the screenplay hint of magic realism
. In this sense, it is important to mention that the days in the film are separated by Andrei's erotic dreams. In his dreams, the differences between him and Marilena are partially removed, either by lowering the rooftop on which the boy stands to ground level or by debarking the girl from a breast-shaped UFO
that scares the neighbors away. Another fictional element is Marilena's capacity of provoking short circuit
s, in moments in which she is very emotionally active (e.g., when Andrei touches her in the bar's restroom, or when the whole neighborhood is cut from electricity when she cries near the high voltage
electrical box).
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
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
Cinema of Romania
The cinema of Romania is the art of motion-picture making within the nation of Romania or by Romanian filmmakers abroad.As upon much of the world's early cinema, the ravages of time have left their mark upon Romanian film prints. Tens of titles have been destroyed or lost for good...
, directed 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...
. First released in 2006, it was also nominated the same year for the Semaine de la critique section of the 59th Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
Being Cristian Nemescu's last completed project, the film stars Mădălina Ghiţescu as Marilena and Gabriel Huian as Andrei. Originally, the film was intended to be used as an exercise, and was not supposed to be longer than seven minutes. In the end, the project evolved to an unusual length of 45 minutes; the film's approach also turned from comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
to teenage love. Reception from the public was favorable – it impressed through its unitary view and the way the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
, picture
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
and sound combine together into a new and organic way, by using innovative, unusual techniques.
Plot
In a suburb of BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, a 13-year-old boy, Andrei (Gabriel Huian), together with some of his friends, watches the prostitutes' show every night from a rooftop and how they are being taken by drivers. The boy falls in love with one of the girls, called Marilena (Mădălina Ghiţescu), and finds out that he needs a decent sum of money in order to approach her. Thus, he steals his father's (Gabriel Spahiu) salary and goes to the prostitutes' meeting place. Marilena's pimp
Pimp
A pimp is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The pimp may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing a location where she may engage clients...
(Andi Vasluianu) is also present, and only agrees to send Marilena and another prostitute with the boy to a nearby pub, where the Rom Elvis is singing (played by the singer Elvis Romano, who translated Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
's lyrics into his own language). The prostitutes play with Andrei, telling him that he needs a car in order to date them, then they leave. The boy asks Marilena for her phone number, and she writes something in his hand.
Andrei sends a dedication for "Marilena from P7", to the local radio station. The prostitute is in an old man's house, listening to the radio, and the song is Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Are You Lonesome Tonight? (song)
"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is a popular song with music by Lou Handman and lyrics by Roy Turk. It was written in 1926, first published in 1927 and most notably revived by Elvis Presley in 1960 ....
, sung by Elvis Presley.
Among her clients, Marilena falls in love with a man, nicknamed Giani (Cătălin Paraschiv). One night, however, she spots Giani in his car in front of a store, accompanied by another woman, and becomes very discouraged.
Andrei finds a way to get hold of a car and plans to steal his father's trolleybus. He manages to do so, together with his friends. His father sees him and starts following the boys with another driver, his colleague. Arriving at the prostitutes' meeting place, the boys cannot find Marilena. Andrei recognizes Giani's car parked in front of block P7, so he goes in.
Marilena and Giani were in fact in her apartment; the girl goes to the restroom for a minute. Andrei manages to sneak into the apartment, and watches how, while still talking to Giani, Marilena cuts her jugular vein
Jugular vein
The jugular veins are veins that bring deoxygenated blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava.-Internal and external:There are two sets of jugular veins: external and internal....
. After realizing what had happened, Giani becomes frightened and runs away; the pimp sees him leaving in a rush, so he goes to the apartment to see what happened. Meanwhile, Andrei goes into the room and looks down at Marilena who is lying down, with blood spilled over her. The news about Marilena's suicide spread fast around the neighborhood.
Lead roles
- Marilena is played by the Romanian actress Mădălina Ghiţescu (born July 29, 1978), became known to the Bucharest public for the roles she played at the Casandra Theater Studio (RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: Studioul de teatru "Casandra") and The Very Small Theater .
- Andrei was played by Gabriel Huian (untrained actor, previously appearing in a video clip that caught the director's attention). He was Cristian Nemescu's preferred choice from the beginning, however a rigorous casting still took place. Apparently attracted to Mădălina Ghiţescu, Huian showed a different attitude than that of other candidates, which only convinced the director further.
Other roles
- Mihai, Andrei's brother – Cristi Olesher
- Andrei's mother – Aura Călăraşu
- Andrei's father – Gabriel Spahiu
- The pimp – Andi Vasluianu
- Giani – Cătălin Paraschiv
From project to production
The film's idea resulted from a small scale exercise between Nemescu and Liviu Marghidan when they were in university in 2003. The original idea belonged to Cătălin Mitulescu and Andreei Vălean; the only part of the original story that was kept is that of a group of boys trying to steal a trolleybus in order to get to some prostitutes.Initially the film was planned as a short fiction, the project evolving during 2005. At the time, Nemescu also had planned what would later become the feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
California Dreamin', impossible to film at that moment, deciding that Marilena from P7 could prove a useful exercise for both director and actors. Thus the screenplay was rewritten and filming started with a very reduced budget of only US $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
14,000, which was collected by Nemescu by participating at various film festivals, with older short fictions. During development, however, the film received new funds, though still modest ones, thus the actors and a part of the team accepted to work for free.
Filming also took place in 2005, near the marketplace of the Bucharest neighborhood Rahova
Rahova
Rahova is a neighbourhood of southwest Bucharest, Romania, situated in Sector 5, west of Dâmboviţa River. It is named after the Bulgarian town Rahovo , site of a battle in the Romanian War of Independence....
. The chosen area raised a few difficulties related to safety. However, the production benefited from its picturesque view, rendering the scenography and the original music unnecessary. The omnipresent manele
Manele
Manele is a music style from Romania, generally associated with the Romani minority, though not exclusively....
also found their way into the movie, as background music.
For a long period of time the project was entitled Trolley Blues; Cristian Nemescu gave up this title, worrying that there might be a large discrepancy between the equivocal name and the actual, very direct content of the movie.
Post-production
The entire filmmaking process was much more complex than that of most Romanian movies made after 1948. The picture stands out through the use of various effects, such as split-screenSplit screen (film)
In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen's frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye...
, and the use of hand-held filming.
The film's music and sound was also thoroughly post-processed by the project's sound designer, Andrei Toncu, to improve the quality of the recordings, because the budget did not allow for complex equipment to be used, and for creative interest. The movie's background music has reduced volume, following the emotional evolution of the characters—Toncu combining the background music (recorded with, or without intention) and a series of effects characteristic to electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
and musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
. However, a few distinct moments can be observed in the film's music, either composed by Andrei Toncu (Andrei imagining stealing the trolleybus), or already existing recordings, edited so that they would integrate into the movie's atmosphere (Elvis Presley's dedication is dynamically equalized
Equalization
Equalization, is the process of adjusting the balance between frequency components within an electronic signal. The most well known use of equalization is in sound recording and reproduction but there are many other applications in electronics and telecommunications. The circuit or equipment used...
to suggest the shift from one radio to another). Another scene in which multiple layers of sound were used was the radio show heard in Giani's car about the breeding of Memestra brassicae
Cabbage Moth
Note: the Small White species of butterfly is commonly called a "cabbage moth" in North America.The Cabbage Moth is a common European moth of the family Noctuidae....
butterflies.
Public reception
Marilena from P7 participated at the 59th Cannes Film Festival, along with two other Romanian films (Cătălin Mitulescu's The Way I Spent the End of the WorldThe Way I Spent the End of the World
The Way I Spent the End of the World is the feature-length film debut of Romanian director Cătălin Mitulescu. It was released on September 15, 2006.-Synopsis:...
and Corneliu Porumboiu
Corneliu Porumboiu
Corneliu Porumboiu is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. His 2006 feature 12:08 East of Bucharest won him the Camera d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival...
's 12:08 East of Bucharest
12:08 East of Bucharest
12:08 East of Bucharest is a 2006 Romanian film directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, released in 2006 and winner of the Camera d'Or Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also released in the United States under the abridged titles East of Bucharest and 12:08 Bucharest...
) and was nominated for the Semaine de la critique section of the French festival.
The Romanian premiere took place on June 4, 2006 at the Transylvania International Film Festival, in Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
. In Bucharest, a first display of the movie was organized on September 8, 2006, in a square established for this purpose on Calea Rahovei Street. The public, as well as the critics from the country, received the movie very well, but the difficulty caused by the movie's unusual duration only allowed for the movie to be on display on a few other occasions. The same problem was encountered when the movie was sent to film festivals outside Romania, being either rejected due to the impossibly of being included in any of the standard categories or included as a short fiction (for example, at Brooklyn).
In the summer of 2006, Nemescu also started the production of
Critical reception
Marilena from P7 was seen by journalists as an attempt to attract attention to various social phenomena (prostitution, the living conditions in low-income Bucharest neighborhoods, etc.), and being presented as a documentary in some scenes. In reality, Nemescu wanted for the public to concentrate on the love story of Andrei:Marilena from P7 also attracted the critics' attention due to its use of explicit verbal and visual content. Cristian Nemescu said that this kind of scenes were a necessarily element for the realism of the movie, declaring himself a partisan of explicit content.
The film continues to be appreciated for its experimental nature, its camera angles and montage elements being treated in an unusual manner, while the fiction elements of the screenplay hint of magic realism
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
. In this sense, it is important to mention that the days in the film are separated by Andrei's erotic dreams. In his dreams, the differences between him and Marilena are partially removed, either by lowering the rooftop on which the boy stands to ground level or by debarking the girl from a breast-shaped UFO
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...
that scares the neighbors away. Another fictional element is Marilena's capacity of provoking short circuit
Short circuit
A short circuit in an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path, often where essentially no electrical impedance is encountered....
s, in moments in which she is very emotionally active (e.g., when Andrei touches her in the bar's restroom, or when the whole neighborhood is cut from electricity when she cries near the high voltage
High voltage
The term high voltage characterizes electrical circuits in which the voltage used is the cause of particular safety concerns and insulation requirements...
electrical box).
Awards and nominations
- The following list includes the most notable nominations and awards the film received.
Date Outcome Festival Country Section Award May 2006 nominated Cannes Film Festival France Semaine de la critique
(FrFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. "Critique week")— June 2006 won "Transylvania" International Film Festival Romania RomaniaRomania 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...
Premiile Zilelor filmului românesc
(RoRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
. "Romanian Film Days Awards")Short fiction (Cristian Nemescu) June 2006 nominated Brooklyn International Film Festival U.S.A. United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Short films — September 2006 won "Milano" Film Festival Italy — Miglior lungometraggio
(ItItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. "Best long fiction")October 2006 won "Molodist" International Film Festival Ukraine UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
— November 2006 nominated International Film and Television Festival
"Cinéma tout écran"Switzerland SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
Short movies — January 2007 won Paris Tout Court France Prix du public
(Fr. "Viewer's Award")Meilleur film étranger
(Fr. "Best Foreign Film")February 2007 won Cineasts' Union Awards Romania — April 2007 won “Syracuse” International Film Festival U.S.A. — Short fiction'
Further reading
- Article originally published in the "Eva" magazine, a dialogue between Greta Harja, Nemescu and Mădălina Ghiţescu before the Cannes Festival
- Interview by Mădălina Ghiţescu with Paul S. Odhan
External links
- Movie profile on Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Movie profile on Cinemagia
- Movie profile on PORT.ro
- Movie profile on AllmovieAll Media GuideAll Media Guide , is the company which owns and maintains Allmusic, Allgame and Allmovie. AMG was founded in 1990 by popular-culture archivist Michael Erlewine....
- Movie poster (with text)
- Photo gallery (photographs from the film and the shooting), hosted by OutNow.ch
