Kristin Scott - Thomas, Claudiu Bleont, Marcel Iures, Olga Tudorache, George Constantin, Razvan Vasilescu

Synopsis:

Romania in the 20s. In a border town on the left bank of the Danube the mansion of Lady Vorvoreanu glitters with the lights of a ball honoured by all the local nobility. Among the invitees are Captain Dumitriu and his wife, Marie-Therese Von Debretsy, a fascinating young woman born in London , whose Hungarian roots and the political interests of her father give rise to malicious gossip. Her husband, also out of jealousy, asks to be transferred elsewhere. His request is granted and he is sent, with his entire family, near the Bulgarian border, where there are strong nationalistic tensions. The situation worsens when a group of bandits kill some Romanian soldiers in an ambush. The officers decide to avenge the murders by arresting and condemning to death a group of innocent Bulgarian farmers. Marie-Therese, who in the meantime has become friends with those farmers, opposes this absurd order.

“What is the most efficient way of dominating people and setting them against each other - arouse the darkest tribal instincts, cancelling the right to be different, - the rehabilitation of the concept that we had thought buried for ever, that of ETHNIC CLEANSING.” (Lucian Pintilie)

“The film inevitably evokes the current conflict in the Balkans, the difficult ethnic cohabitation, political strategies that ignore man [...]. But Pintilie shuns political polemics and aims directly at ethical and moral problems [...], John Ford's shadow hovers over this story about a garrison surrounded by dust, animated by friendships, but faithful to the trumpet calls... it is suddenly the theatre of barbarities.” (Giorgio Rinaldi, in Cineforum, no. 335, June 1994, pg. 28)

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