Humoresque – Humoresca (2007)

Directed by: Diana Deleanu | 16 minutes | documentary | With: Maria Ozon, Constantin Ozon

The film opens with a civil servant reciting a measure from 2002. Young married people, ie people who want to start a family, are entitled to a subsidy of two hundred euros from the government. Then you see an old woman pottering about on a small, shabby farm and a man smoking on the veranda or staring straight ahead. In between, beautiful music is played and Romanian proverbs appear on beautiful plates as if they were from the silent film.

Mary cannot read or write. She was the eldest of a large family and had to help her mother raise the younger children. After that it was hard work again, especially after the collectivization of agriculture under the communists. Life didn’t get any better despite all the promises. Nothing changed after the fall of the communist party and she is still without running water or electricity. The only bright spot in her life is the emergence out of nowhere of Constantin with whom she has been together for a lifetime without a mayor or priest being involved to make their relationship official. But that is now changing.

‘Humoresque’ is a small, shiny gem. The scurrying of the old people is portrayed so not at all pitying or pathetic that you immediately feel sympathy for these people who have worked so hard and are empty-handed, but at the same time are proud of themselves and above all love each other. Also the ironic way in which the quoted Romanian proverbs serve as an illustration for all the unfulfilled promises of the various governments or life itself, makes the bitter subject easily digestible. And that humorous streak is justified. Constantin’s broad smile after the wedding is triumphant, this is not a man defeated by life at all, this is a man who marries his great love and Maria has finally managed to fool those damned authorities by strictly obeying the law. to hold. A moving and witty gem.