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Transylvania |
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Ion Martea |
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Three girls stop with their car in a seemingly deserted town in the heart of Transylvania. Luminita (Alexandra Beaujard) is a local Romanian gypsy. She is the guide. Marie (Amira Casar) is a French girl who accompanies her Italian friend, Zingarina (Asia Argento), in the search for the latter’s boyfriend, Milan Augustin (Marco Castoldi), a Romany musician who has been extradited from France. Zingarina is two months pregnant. This is the opening of Tony Gatlif’s Transylvania. From the start, a passionate gypsy tune promises a ride like no other through the colourful, yet harsh, life of a community always on the move. In their search, Zingarina meets Tchangalo (Birol Ünel), an itinerant antiques salesman. He says he is in search of gold. She says she is looking for love. They drink to that, letting the intensity of the music pass through their blood. Drunk and reinforced in her quest, she hopes Milan is near. Milan is indeed close, but he rejects her. And the music carries on, stupefying Zingarina’s senses to the point that she realises that it wasn’t Milan that she really loved, but that music, that passion, that rhythm which keeps life in the human body. Tchangalo is thus an adequate replacement in terms of physical desire, while her love of music, passion itself, slowly takes over her life. Gatlif’s is a simple story of two people falling for each other. Displaced in time and space, the two require nothing from the world but one another’s presence. Love is nothing but pure accommodation with the presence of the other. Their relationship becomes the epitome of humanity, as it was created at the dawn of time. Gatlif remains thus truly engrained in the romantic tradition, and does nothing to shy away from it; moreover, everything becomes an exaggeration, the isolation of the two characters finally being driven to wider and emptier landscapes. The only thing that stays constant is the love for the music. Transylvania is not like Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat (1999), in which the Romany community becomes a source of inspiration but also humour, nor is it an anthropological documentary, primarily concerned with cultural aesthetics slightly peppered by the effects of socio-economic poverty. If anything, it is closest to Emil Loteanu’s spellbinding Gypsies Are Found near Heaven (1975). What Gatlif is exploring is what makes the gypsy life so appealing on a cultural level, yet so marginalised on a social one. By using actors of different backgrounds, he immediately erases any possible caricature, thus allowing the discourse to flow unhindered by preconceived attitudes. Two themes emerge in consequence. The first is that the social marginalisation of the Romany community is a result of larger society’s displeasure with people who depart from the norm. Zingarina’s poor hygiene or ignorance of fashion is not a sign of rebellion, but emerges purely from the fact that she does not value her body as her true self. Her tattooed body is just her presence in the world, one that she wants to see, but chooses not to participate in. Her escape through a densely packed ‘Goat Procession’ symbolises her physical displacement from tradition, and hence from the society’s mores. From this point, her existence ceases to require the support of other humans, ending in an isolated space surrounded only by those she chooses to share a life with. The other, more predominant theme is that of music. Zingarina and Tchangalo each share a perfect fusion with folklore. They are both in a state of trance, music seemingly moving their body from one place to the other. What Gatlif captures is not so much the quality of gypsy music, as the passionate craftsmanship of the musicians. ‘Music is meant to make one live’, says one of the players while refusing to give Tchangalo an accompaniment for his suicidal dance. The characters’ rejection of pop songs reinforces the sense that the performers play for some other aim than the pure celebration of music. This is arguably something shared by Gatlif, who has not used any manele (the most commercially effective gypsy songs on the Romanian market) in the whole film. There is also very little authentic Romany music. What the director relishes are his arrangements of traditional Romanian folk music, adding that extra tempo, making the melodies burn in their passionate intensity. It is the gypsy players who have developed their skills such that every note reaches that perfect pitch, leaving one’s feet powerless to resist dancing. Romany cultural heritage thus lies primarily in its artists. Zingarina’s and Tchangalo’s identification with folklore emerges purely from the quality of playing music, rather than the content. When the musician fails to perform, the music loses its essense, and he becomes nothing but a teddy-bear toy, tilting his head left and right randomly, while playing his balalaika, in a boring Ukrainian-border village-bar. Gatlif seemed to have chosen Transylvania for this feature to emphasise that it is not race, but our relationship to a cultural heritage that makes us what we are. Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Romany, Ukrainians, Turks, Jews – all share the stage in Transylvania, each having their own language, music and traditions. Zingarina chooses to be Romany because it rings closer to what she wants in life. Will she and Tchangalo continue their life as wanderers? Gatlif is not interested. The important thing is that they are content with who they are and with what they have.
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