Quiet tragedy, absurdist humor, and unsettling undertones of genre cinema blend in Andrei Epure’s gloomy feature film debut. Expanding on an equally drab and disquieting world hinted at in his 2021 short Intercom 15, the Romanian director arrives in the 78th Locarno Film Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present section with a deeply atmospheric drama revealing the uncanny disturbances settling into everyday life. Co-written with Ana Gheorghe, whose own childhood experiences partly inspired the premise, the slowly and steadily flowing story transforms a brief, disquieting encounter with death into a sustained study of grief and detachment. Social indifference manifests as a silent specter haunting the dismal setting, constantly palpable but never openly acknowledged or seen.
The episodic plot evolves around Maria (Cosmina Stratan), whose solitary life in a small Romanian town is interrupted when she becomes unexpectedly responsible for the burial of her neighbor Isabela (Elina Löwensohn). The overlooked woman is found dead at the entrance to their shared apartment building. Though Maria barely knew her, bizarre circumstances push her into navigating the funeral arrangements. Having no legal ties to the deceased, she is missing crucial information needed to proceed with the unceremonial burial. This simple obstacle becomes a source of mounting absurdity, as bureaucratic systems reveal themselves to be equally inhumane and irrational. As she negotiates with unfeeling officials, the surreal scenery becomes an ominous reflection of her unspecific grief.
As an unknown figure central to the narrative but never actually present or seen, Isabela becomes an emblem of collective apathy and institutional neglect. Her phantasmagoric presence shapes the ominous atmosphere more than any concrete memory or backstory. Cast as both undertaker and reluctant interlocutor to a leaden bureaucracy, Maria wanders through a reality destabilized by emotional isolation and the unrelenting absurdity of formal procedures. Maria is haunted not only by her grim social obligation but by the hollowness of the machinery around her, accentuating themes of loneliness, mourning, and isolated pain. Scenes of jarring nighttime screams echoing through the intercom, strange noises, and a vaguely threatening soundscape situate the events within a liminal psychological space.
Reality feels at once familiar and slightly off-kilter. With its long stretches of wasteland, Socialist architecture, and low-lit interiors, the sepulchral setting mirrors the emptiness of Maria’s world. Cinematographer Laurențiu Raducanu draws on a minimalist palette, employing static compositions and muted colors to create an aura of paralyzing stasis. The physical presence of places and people – dead or alive – contrasts with the absence of human connection. Dialogue is sparse, often strangely punctuated by phrases – “We believe in community and empathy!” – that accentuate the social disassociation. The mundane horror is a society where people are mentally completely shut off from each other, even though they live in intrusive proximity, with every eerie noise creeping through paper-thin walls.
Stratan’s restrained performance shifts between brittle composure and moments where frustration and desperation shine through. The amusing absurdity of Maria’s predicament is undercut by death’s permanence and the irritating ways of its administrative regulation. Her many errands, from visiting municipal offices to speaking to unhelpful clerks, feel slowed down, as if time and space were infected by the stifling apathy. This deliberate slowness makes this macabre, social-critical parable often exhausting, and its lack of dramatic development further strains the incomplete storyline. Still, the atmospheric web of Kafkaesque comedy and modernist gothic tale marks a distinct directorial vision and emanates a sinister, enigmatic pull.
- OT: Nu mă lăsa să mor
- Director: Andrei Epure
- Year: 2025
