«Baccalaureate»

Cinema Wednesdays - Loris S. Musumeci

«Thank you, sir. I'll make it up to you.»

Romeo (Adrian Titieni) works as a doctor in a small town in Transylvania. His life doesn’t seem particularly troubling or sad. Except that he lives in a horrible, poorly built, and dirty suburban neighborhood—and that, right from the opening scenes, a stone is thrown through the window of his home, shattering it. That same morning, he has to take his only daughter, Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus), to high school. His wife, Magda (Lia Bugnar), stays in the bedroom without saying goodbye to them—she says it’s because of a headache; in short, she’s depressed.

The car ride through this abandoned construction site of a city is very quiet and dreary. The girl listens to her music; the father drives. He nevertheless tries to strike up a conversation with her by asking some trivial question: «How are you?». The answers are brief. The car stops near the high school, but not right in front of the entrance as usual. Romeo hurries because he needs to drown his sorrows in sex with Sandra, his sweet yet self-serving mistress (Malina Manovici).

That morning, after walking just a few meters, Eliza was secretly molested and raped. It was a moment of intense sensation: at that very moment, in fact, the adulterer was caressing the breasts of his illegitimate lover. The fleeting moment of tenderness was cut short. The phone rings. A colleague from the hospital: «Romeo, come quickly. Your daughter has been assaulted.»

Eliza is clearly still shocked and frightened by the crime she suffered. Fortunately, the young girl escaped with a fractured right wrist and no traces of semen inside her; the assailant did not go so far as to penetrate her. She will recover. One problem remains: the high school senior is set to begin her high school graduation exams the very next day. And she needs to earn an average of 18 out of 20 to qualify for a scholarship that will allow her to study psychology in England, because «what matters is going to live in a normal country,» according to her father’s authority.

Although she is an excellent student, she will be distracted by this unfortunate event and will write more slowly because of her injured wrist. Romeo tries to bring this up with the administration, but to no avail. The rules are the same for everyone. This is unacceptable to an honest father who has pinned all his hopes on his daughter.

«Romeo, this is for your child.» Here’s the help they received from Commissioner Ivanov, the doctor’s best friend. You have to be willing to resort to bribery. Mr. Bulai, who has close ties to the police and is deeply entangled in shady dealings, will be the ideal person to contact. He knows the high school principal, and, as luck would have it, he’s urgently in need of a heart transplant; one will take care of the organ, the other of a successful high school graduation.

Once a dreamer and an exile from Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime, this is the first time Romeo has gotten caught up in this dangerous game—and nothing will go as planned. Cristian Mungiu, a Cannes award winner for his directing, delivers a masterful work to audiences here. Both the form and the content are powerful, thanks to their technical and political-philosophical depth, respectively.

High School Diploma effectively stands as a moral symbol of today’s Romania. This story is told from an extremely modern perspective through a camera that is at times fixed on the harrowing drama of the seedy neighborhoods, and at other times unstable—shot over the shoulder—as it follows Romeo’s frantic search for a better tomorrow for his daughter.

Furthermore, the sheer realism of the plot makes the film all the more moving and meaningful. High School Diploma In doing so, it places the family at the center of the tragedy. This is what has caused some disappointment among certain critics. The story is said to be too moralistic about the weight of parenthood. The criticism is valid; however, it would be more appropriate to accuse the film of being excessively harsh in the emotions it evokes. It is not easy to be glued to the screen for two hours while watching images that depict the bitterness of contemporary families. The father, frustrated by his own failure and the existential unhappiness that haunts him, artificially and somewhat clumsily directs the life of his spoiled princess. An only child—his only chance for redemption.

Yet Romeo isn’t a bad person. He’s even endearing, as a man who is suffering, like most fathers. And his devotion is not without meaning either: the failures of corruption serve as a lesson for those who will build the Romania of tomorrow. For this country is not without hope, despite its architectural ugliness, the rot within its institutions, and the disillusioned indifference of its people. In Mungiu’s view, his films and the work of others of good will can still preserve the desire for happiness in Eastern Europe—even if nothing changes in politics.

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