14/24
I encourage people to see this filmas much as it infuriated me
Line of Events
During the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Sibiu witnesses a violent attack on a police station that escalates into armed clashes between soldiers, police, protesters, and secret police. References Rocky (1976). It is compelling and, as previous posters (apparently mostly Romanian) have written, it is truly "immersive experience," and deserves to be seen and appreciated from an artistic perspective. But it is, unfortunately, a deeply regrettable mockery from the perspective of someone who has spent decades investigating the events of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989. My first, of several, hopefully episodic, entries, is to show that despite what Tudor Giurgiu, the director, has said in his many interviews, and what one reviewer, Eugen Istodor, has said…
“Vocea securistilor nu s-a auzit 30 si ceva de ani si filml le da cuvantul” (Hotnewsro October 7, 2023)
“The voice of the Securitate (the communist-era secret police) has not been heard for over 30 years, and this film gives them a say.”…there is nothing new in this story…in fact, it has been repeatedly expressed and has long since achieved hegemony in Romanian media and everyday life. (Tudor Giurgiu spoke publicly at these performances, I was there at one, about the “false narratives (about the army) that dominated for over 30 years…and about the supposedly dominant narrative of the “glorious army”;…but let’s test his claims here)…below, for English speakers, two famous public discussions about the Sibiu events of December 1989…from 1990 and 1997, so 33 and 26 years ago…to be continued…POET, ESSAYIST AND NPR COMMENTATOR ANDREI CODRESCU in Sibiu in July 1990, seven months after the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 A strange feeling came over me as my friends spoke. Most of what they said rang true, but there seemed to be something missing, a plot element that no one wanted to mention. Here, in the midst of this sumptuous feast, I experienced the horror of another (almost new) revelation: Everyone blamed the shootings on the army; no one blamed the Securitate. And yet the official government line was that the Securitate—not the army—massacred all the people who had been undeniably massacred in Bucharest, Sibiu, and elsewhere.
Could they have been my friends?
I felt like stretching two fingers over my shoulder (the sign he had used earlier to indicate that someone had Securitate ties), but I had no one to do it for. In any case, the point they were making, and which was being confirmed everywhere these days, was that many shots were fired, but few in defense of Ceausescu, whom everyone had betrayed. Not even his son, who was in charge of Sibiu, had ordered anyone to shoot at the demonstrators. Ironically, the People’s Army began shooting at the crowds at the same time that the army officially switched to the “people’s side.” The shooting, however, was more about creating panic than about killing the dead. The Romanian televised revolution had only one side…Everyone was on it.
“Nicu was never ready to be the successor
–"Big Chills: My High School Reunion in Romania," HARPER’S MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 1990 and as late as 1997, the American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner William McPherson wrote about what Valentin Ceausescu, the eldest son of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, told him about the events of the Romanian revolution of December 1989. I. and I. were having coffee at Vox Maris, the same large casino where the funeral was held. It was morning, two days after (Nicu Ceausescu’s) funeral, and the crowds had not yet arrived.
"But rumors even become reality"–“Yes
That was (just) a rumor.” He paused for a moment.