Aferim! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Aferim! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 3, 2016

Winner of Silver Bear Award for Best Director and selected to represent Romania in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 88th Academy Awards, Radu Jude's "Aferim!" (2015) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of independent U.S. distributors Big World Pictures. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film and director Radu Jude's short film "The Tube With a Hat". In Romanian, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

"All around you heard the screams of the miserable souls in the fields of Dudesti..."

If the great Sergio Leone was still alive today, he would have instantly fallen in love with this film. It is not a western, but it has the type of special period atmosphere that defined Leone’s best work.

The film opens up in Wallachia sometime during the year 1835. The veteran tracker Constandin (Teodor Corban, 12:08 East of Bucharest) and his son Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu) have been dispatched to find a fugitive slave (Toma Cuzin, Bucharest Non Stop) and bring him back to a merciless boyar (Alexandru Dabija). They don’t know where the man is but suspect that he might have tried to go back to a small village not too far away from the place where he was raised.

The slave is a gypsy whose entire family and many of his relatives belong to the boyar. He has bought them from another nobleman and given them work that is now helping them survive. They are not guarded by the boyar’s men, but understand that they are part of a different class of people and that they cannot mingle with the people they serve. If any of them do, they must be punished so that the proper social order is preserved.

Constandin and Ionita eventually capture the slave and begin the long journey back to the boyar’s manor. However, soon after they discover that the slave ran away from him not because he is a thief, as they were told, but because he was seduced by the boyar’s wife (Luminita Gheorghiu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days) and feared for his life. Realizing that the boyar will never accept the slave’s story and will demand a cruel punishment that will teach his slaves to respect him even more, Ionita decides to convince his father to set him free. But the more he tries to change his mind, the more he begins to realize that in the world they are a part of freedom is simply a meaningless word.

Romanian director Radu Jude’s film Aferim! tells two very different stories. The first is essentially a simple adventure story which to a certain extent copies the extravagant candor that is present in the work of Serbian director Emir Kusturica. Unsurprisingly, it has a very distinctive Balkan temperament and finds humor in some very unusual places. (One can probably point out some similarities with the work of French Romani director Tony Gatlif as well, but typically there is a poetic element in it that carries a more conventional art flavor).

The second story should be a true eye-opener for most western viewers. Constandin and Ionita’s journey is basically used as a pretext to bring awareness to a very serious socio-cultural issue that remains a hot topic in Romania -- the massive division between different ethnic and cultural groups in the country and the violence it frequently breeds. During the Cold War public attention was diverted away from it -- mostly by quickly and very effectively silencing anyone that dared to question the unity the Communist Party promoted -- but after the Romanian Revolution in 1989 the cracks quickly resurfaced. This story shows that the issue is basically inherited and that the division is perhaps part of the country’s social structure.

Radu does not end the film with any political messages or calls for unity -- and rightfully so. The truth is that there is a lot that needs to happen before the tensions between different groups disappear, so perhaps a good starting point is a film like this one that simply has the courage to go back in time and be honest.

Aferim! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.38:, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Radu Jude's Afermi! arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Big World Pictures.

A lot of the outdoor footage is very impressively lensed and can quite easily be compared to the stunning visuals from Sergio Leone's best films. Fortunately, detail, clarity and depth range from very good to excellent and make it very easy to appreciate the artistic vision of Radu Jude and cinematographer Marius Panduru (see screencaptyures #3 and 6). Furthermore, there are lovely nuances that greatly enhance the desired fluid appearance. Virtually all of them are produced by capturing natural light in specific ways. Stability is excellent. The encoding could have been optimized a bit better to avoid a few minor artifacts that attempt to sneak in, but there are no serious anomalies to report in our review. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to access its content regardless of your geographical location).

Aferim! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Romanian Dolby Digital 5.1 and Romanian Dolby Digital 2.0 (with a few small exchanges in Turkish and Romani). Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

The film does not have a music score. The sound design is fairly modest as well. There are various exchanges in Romanian, some Turkish and Romani, and plenty of organic sounds and noises. Naturally, dynamic intensity is quite modest. This being said, a lossless track would have been preferable as in some areas depth would have likely been better. However, the lossly track is actually quite strong and all of the basics we typically pay attention to -- balance and fluidity in particular -- are solid. There are no audio dropouts, pops, or digital distortions to report in our review.

Aferim! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original U.S. trailer for Aferim!. In Romanian, English text, and printed English subtitles. (2 min, 1080p).

• The Tube With a Hat - presented here is director Radu Jude's short film The Tube With a Hat (2006) about a young boy and his father who travel from their country home the a nearby city to get their TV to a local repairman. In Romanian, with imposed English subtitles. (24 min, 1080p).

Aferim! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Romania has the largest Romani gypsy population in Europe whose integration has been a major issue for a number of different local governments. Simply put, any meaningful efforts to make it a viable part of the modern European country Romania aspires to be have failed -- for a number of different reasons. I think that a few can be discovered in Radu Jude's excellent period film Aferim!, though as most Romanians will probably admit the big picture really is a lot more complicated. The film is very beautifully lensed and it has some of the extravagant candor that is present in the work of Serbian director Emir Kusturica. I liked it a lot. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.