The Concert aka Concertul by Radu Mihaileanu, nominated for The Golden Globe for Best International Film, winner of Césars and other prestigious awards - 9 out of 10

 

The Concert aka Concertul by Radu Mihaileanu, nominated for The Golden Globe for Best International Film, winner of Césars and other prestigious awards

9 out of 10

 

 

There are a few Romanian film makers that have given audiences impressive works, some of them among The Best 100 Movies Ever Made, such as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/05/4-months-3-weeks-and-2-days-aka-4-luni.html by Cristian Mungiu

 

His children have studied (maybe they still do) at the Lycee Francais, just like my beloved daughter, Hannah, and once, at the end of school beano, during the festivities, he was talking with another giant of cinema – Corneliu Porumboiu http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/la-gomera-aka-whistlers-written-and.html another regular at the Cannes Film Festival, with the nominees, not just as a cinephile

I wanted to try and take a picture and also get to…Happiness Activity No 1: Expressing  Gratitude –counting your blessings for what you have either to a close other or privately, maybe in a journal, conveying gratitude to one or more individuals you haven’t properly thanked, but my wife said no, and a bunch of other things

 

The Concert starts with an interesting plot, the premise that some people may just pass as The Bolshoi Orchestra, and not just that, but have The Concert in…Paris, and if this sounds unbelievable, well, let me tell you just one word – Trump, not plastics, the latter line is used in the stupendous, cult movie The Graduate http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-graduate-by-charles-webb-10-out-of.html

Indeed, the book is a Hideous Kinky joy ride itself, what with Mrs. Robinson and her daughter, and at the beginning, the parents of The Graduate throw a party for him, and many other gifts, attentions, for they are the precursors of the infamous ‘helicopter parents’ of these days, and one guest comes to the graduate and says ‘let me tell you just one word…plastics’, I wonder if it was Mr. Robinson, but now plastics is the plague, not the success formula which they had in mind back in the sixties, when the action takes place…

 

In his capital, fundamental Adventures in The Screen Trade http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/adventures-in-screen-trade-by-william.html the regretted William Goldman, winner of two Oscars for his scripts, explains how there are things that are hard to put on the screen – some trespasser enters this castle, which is inexpugnable, with multitudes of servants, guards, and then somehow finds himself in the bedroom of one of the most important sentient beings…Goldman says that the public would stand and walk out of the cinema, if presented with such a story, only this has really happened to…The Queen and it is now included in the series The Crown

 

In The Concert, somehow we have Andrei Filipov ready to pull off an incredible stunt, getting the message meant for the ‘official’ Bolshoi, he may gather his old team and travel to Paris, to claim they are the guests expected to perform, and there are some aces he has, the most important is they used to be The Bolshoi.

The Soviet Union was The ‘Evil Empire ‘as Reagan so well said it (we are talking of the communist days in The Concert) and Russia is not much different – Putin keeps saying he regrets the old regime, he had stated that the collapse of the old USSR was the greatest calamity of the last century, and he starts wars to get that empire back together, using the old bombing strategies and the same tactics and propaganda, the West has attacked us, and we are ‘defending the land, not invading’, just like in that old joke

 

To give you an idea of how things worked back in the ‘red glory times’, which we had in this realm, because the Soviets have not been satisfied with the largest country on earth in the red, they brought that plague in Eastern and Central Europe, there is a joke with Radio Yerevan, for whatever reason, they used the name of that outfit, and there were questions for the station and they would reply with comic enthusiasm

The question regards Mr. Ionescu, Popov, Istvan – you could use this joke in all the countries of the Warsaw Block, and this is what they now do in China, Cuba, all the wretched lands with the commies at the helm, and for that matter, in dictatorships wherever you have The Big Brother exposed in Nineteen Eighty Four http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/09/nineteen-eighty-four-by-george-orwell.html by George Orwell

 

Is it true that Mr. Ionescu has been given a white Dacia (here we could again put in a different make, Skoda, Lada, Trabant, etc.) and the answer is ‘no, it is not a car (Dacia), it is a bicycle, it was not white, it is black, and it was not given to him, it was taken away…so this is how propaganda and the regime in these places works, they lie to your face, and then they are abusive, they take things and give you…hell

Granted, lying is now so pervasive, that what was once the role model, the absolute dream for the likes of us, living under Ceausescu and others like him, though a touch more humane that the absolute Beelzebub, America has given the world The Galactic Liar and a case of severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder

 

As for The Concert, it is a challenge to overcome bureaucracy in these places, but somehow, also a chance, which is speculated in this scenario, they are so hopeless, that maybe a troupe of inventive, talented artists can really pass for The Bolshoi

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world    – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html  

 

From To The Heritage:

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life. As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality. Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“the Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”