A first film that is a cross between a theatre play and a television show grows unexpectedly compelling in A fost sau n-a fost? (12:08, East of Bucharest), a Romanian comedy that tries to fathom what happened exactly when the communist dictator Ceausescu fled the country sixteen years ago. Rookie writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu has a great flair for creating comic yet believable characters, though technically (also because of the TV show format he has chosen), the film is not half as exciting.

The Romanian title literally translates as “Was there or wasn’t there?”, which is the question of the day at a small, local television station that wants to investigate the events of 22 December 1989. Was it a popular revolution that made communist dictator Ceausescu flee, or did the people crowd the streets only after he took off in his private helicopter, in which case there was no revolution at all?

The owner of the TV station and presenter of the programme is Jderescu (Ion Sapdaru), a Romanian miniature version of Berlusconi minus the overt political aspirations but with a similar flair for colourful gaffes and innate sense of preponderance. His two guests for the evening are the lonely pensioner Piscoci (Mircea Andreescu), better known in town as the man who used to dress up as Santa Claus each Christmas, and he history teacher and compulsive alcoholic Manescu (Teo Corban), an apparent eye witness to the events of 1989. 

After a short (but nevertheless overlong) opening section in which the characters are somewhat clumsily established, Porumbiou settles down in his TV format, showing on film what television viewers in Romania would see had they tuned in to Jderescu’s programme. It runs in real time for the entire duration of the show (even showing us what happens during the commercial break), and Porumboiu handles his gentle version of character- and situational comedy well, playing off the different personalities of the three characters and their interaction (or lack thereof) between themselves and the viewers, who are encouraged to call in with their questions and comments and also offer their insights and insults.

Porumboiu’s choice to occupy a good part of the film’s running length with three talking heads who are in a badly produced TV show does not make the film very exciting cinematically, and the film’s structure is also undermined since this long middle section is obviously the meat of the story, making the first half hour of character introduction feel overly protracted in retrospect. The comedy, more aking to a TV sketch or subversive play, works perfectly however, mainly because of Porumboiu’s excellent direction of the actors (who all have a faultless comic timing) and the witty script, also from the director’s hand. The characters are all intelligent riffs on clichés (the drunk, the lonely pensioner, the arrogant TV presenter) and their discussion about what really happened on that important day grows decidedly compelling and succeeds to remain hilarious as minutes tick by. A more reflective closing sequence that reprises some of the ideas of the opening scenes offers a nice sense of closure.

This film was screened as part of the 2006 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. 

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