Vicious antisemitism was entrenched in Romania in the form of persecution and pogroms long before the regime collaborated with Nazi forces on the massacre of Jews in the Holocaust, a dark and still relatively taboo aspect of the nation’s past Andrei Cohn revisits in his third feature, Holy Week.
The historical drama, which is set in the countryside in the late nineteenth century and screened in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival after its premiere in the Berlinale’s Forum section, is a “free adaptation” of the 1889 novella An Easter Torch by Ion Luca Caragiale. It is less aimed at bearing witness to a specific event than it is intended to set out a general moral treatise about hatred breeding hatred, which is passed on generationally as children imitate the attitudes and behaviour of their parents. It contends that the kind of hatred that can spark murderous acts is something every human is capable of — a meaning elucidated by a surprise twist, in a film which starts with a scene of brutal mob violence against a Jewish woman that sets up a sense of terrible inevitability that this cannot end peacefully. There is nothing fresh or modern about the dour palate or unrushed, relentlessly chronological tread of this story (indeed, this is a cycle of animosity and violence that has been turning for far longer than the advent of cinema), but there is an earthy, blunt rawness to the telling, and an uncompromising lack of sentimentality, that means we are hit at full force by its unvarnished simplicity, and the dread that builds as inter-religious relationships in the village deteriorate.
Leiba (Doru Bem), a gruff Jewish innkeeper, lives on the premises of his business with his wife Sura (Nicoleta Lefter) and their son Eli (Mario Dinu). These are tough times economically, and his local Orthodox regulars are becoming churlish, their growing resentment that he charges for everything he serves them underpinned by antisemitic insinuations of greed, even though he has let them run up debts for prior meals. Racism is tense in the air, and all it takes is a little too much wine before patrons are discussing eugenics, and sharing slurs about Jews, Roma and Turks. This kind of talk is normalised in the village, and Leiba endures it as part of the price of making a living for his family — but an escalating problem with his flighty and malicious employee Gheorghe (an excellent Ciprian Chiriches) becomes the catalyst for a more menacing form of conflict to erupt.
Beautiful long shots of the country landscape only serve to underscore the gnawing sense of desperate hardship and dread. Pastoral harmony is far from the minds of the family at the inn, as they ration candles and conduct wary checks on who might be slinking around in the yard. When Gheorghe is fired after deliberately flouting Jewish rules about keeping food kosher out of spite, he threatens to return for revenge at Easter, a time of Orthodox celebration when the innkeeper’s family are eyed askance as sinful for not following the tradition of dying eggs red (spilt blood, in varying symbolic and literal forms, is an effective thread running through otherwise austere frames.)
The way in which bigotry is fuelled by invented narratives is astutely depicted. Leiba is accused of cheating his customers with sour wine that he improves the taste of through “sorcery.” Blocked from buying supplies, he is tricked and threatened into purchasing low-quality wine, ironically forced into adopting the role he has been falsely assigned. When the gendarmerie refuse to send protection for the family, the local authorities dismissing the pregnant Sura as stuck up and needing a dose of fear to bring her down to size, the stage is more than set for tragedy. They are not the first to endure this prejudice, which their ancestors have little spoken of due to shame, she points out — and certainly, we are all too aware, they will not be the last.
Director, Screenwriter: Andrei Cohn
Editing: Andrei Iancu, Dana Bunescu
Cast: Doru Bem, Nicoleta Lefter, Ciprian Chiriches, Mario Gheorghe Dinu, Ana Cioneta
Producer: Anca Puiu
Cinematographer: Andrei Butica
Sound Design: Daniel Soare, Petre Osman
Production Design: Cristian Niculescu
Production company: Mandragora
Sales: Shellac
Venue: Sarajevo (Competition)
In Romanian
133 minutes
