An Unforgettable Summer movie storyline. The film’s plot, which develops as a flashback narrated by Dumitriu’s young son, opens with what American film magazine Variety called “a mad gallop, with the camera in the saddle, giving viewers a crash course in regional rivalries circa 1925.” In the opening scenes, Romanian authorities are shown to be frantically engaged in shutting down a brothel, whose presence they believe would embarrass local high society at a time when a grand ball is set to take place.
This scandalized prostitutes include the Hungarian Erzsi, who is also a communist sympathizer, and who irritates the officials by shouting out insults and mooning them through a window. During the latter scene, John Simon notes, Land Forces officers are shown staring up “in mixed horror and admiration at the familiar globe whose owner they promptly identify.”[3] As she is beaten up by the soldiers, Erzsi continues to defy her aggressors by shouting up revolutionary slogans coined under the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
The film then centers on the gala, which is attended by the Dumitrius and offers the setting for Von Debretsy’s rejection of General Ipsilanti’s advances. The characters’ backgrounds are explained through the gossip of Madame Vorvoreanu, a distant relative of Von Debretsy, who is attending the event. The spectators are thus told that Von Debretsy is the daughter of a Romanian boyaress and a member of the Hungarian aristocracy, and that she is held in contempt by the local notabilities.[3] In parallel, Ipsilanti himself is shown to be not just a military commander, but also as a prince.
Film historian Anne Jäckel describes the story as dealing with “the slow descent into Hell of two honest, liberal people.” The two persons are the short and monocled Captain Dumitriu and his sophisticated wife. Confronted with the general’s spiteful decision, they find themselves isolated to a garrison in a land frequently raided by Macedonian komitadji, in rebellion against Romanian rule.
Initially shocked by the cultural clash, Von Debretsy, a mother of three, attempts to adapt her aristocratic lifestyle to the new requirements, but manages to make herself stand out when she continues to seek a life of luxury. French critic Sylvie Rollet argues that this attempt to “tame the world” by erecting “frontiers” is a central aspect of An Unforgettable Summer.
An Unforgettable Summer (French: Un été inoubliable; Romanian: O vară de neuitat) is a 1994 drama film directed and produced by Lucian Pintilie. A Romanian-French co-production based on a chapter from a novel by Petru Dumitriu, it stars British actress Kristin Scott Thomas as the Hungarian-born aristocrat Marie-Thérèse Von Debretsy. Her marriage with Romanian Land Forces captain Petre Dumitriu brings her to Southern Dobruja (present-day northeastern Bulgaria), where they settle in 1925.
There, she witnesses first-hand the violent clashes between, on one hand, the Greater Romanian administration, and, on the other, komitadji brigands of Macedonian origin and ethnic Bulgarian locals. The film shows her failed attempt to rescue Bulgarians held hostage by the Romanian soldiers, and who are destined for execution. An Unforgettable Summer also stars Claudiu Bleonţ as Captain Dumitriu and Marcel Iureş as Ipsilanti, a general whose unsuccessful attempt to seduce Von Debretsy and the resulting grudge he holds against the couple account for Dumitriu’s reassignment.
Completed in the context of the Yugoslav wars, the film constitutes an investigation into the consequences of xenophobia and state-sanctioned repression, as well as an indictment of a failure in reaching out. It is thus often described as a verdict on the history of Romania, as well as on problems facing the Balkans at large, and occasionally described as a warning that violence could also erupt in a purely Romanian context.
An Unforgettable Summer (1994)
Directed by: Lucian Pintilie
Starring: Kristin Scott Thomas, Claudiu Bleont, Olga Tudorache, George Constantin, Ion Pavlescu, Razvan Vasilescu, Tamara Cretulescu, Carmen Ungureanu
Screenplay by: Lucian Pintilie
Production Design by: Paul Bortnowski, Calin Papura
Cinematography by: Călin Ghibu
Film Editing by: Victoriţa Nae
Costume Design by: Miruna Boruzescu
Music by: Anton Şuteu
Distributed by: MK2 Productions
Release Date: November 11, 1994
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