Direction: Cristi Puiu
Country: Romania / other
Cristi Puiu is a Romanian director credited with accomplished films such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), Aurora (2010) and Sieranevada (2016). Manor House, his sixth feature, however, is an interminable philosophical debate set in the 19th-century Transylvania that doesn’t take us anywhere beyond aristocratic pretentiousness.
The film, based on a text by Russian philosopher Vladimir Salovyov, denotes a remarkable cinematography by Tudor Vladimir Panduru (My Happy Family; Graduation) and an impeccable, evocative mise en scène that ceases to create an impact as the tedium of the conversation gradually installs.
This plot-less exercise centers on a Christmas gathering hosted by Nikolai (Frédéric Schulz-Richard), an aristocrat landowner, who seems to enjoy the company of his four argumentative guests - the Franco-Russian politician Edouard (Ugo Broussot), the ironic middle-aged Madeleine (Agathe Bosch), the young pious Olga (Marina Palii), and Ingrida (Diana Sakalauskaité), the wife of a Russian general. In their complex examinations, the group addresses war and peace, God and the antichrist, death and sins, Russia and Europe, reason and conscience, politeness and human progress. Puiu also gives us a quick glimpse of the servants’ work and behavior around the house, which is the most interesting part of the film.
These erudite discussions, sometimes recalling the elegant formalism of Manoel de Oliveira, are captured by excessively long takes where the actors, with more or less theatrical demeanor, vomit their thoughts with no interruption or restraint. Can you imagine a film that you have to wait an entire hour for something to happen - an abrupt faint, in the case - and absolutely nothing comes from that? Puiu was never more obstinate and futile than in Manor House.
