Mirror

The film covers the Second World War years in Romania and puts at its centre the coup of the twenty third of August 1944. On that day Ion Antonescu, the authoritarian prime minister who had brought the country into the war on the side of the Axis, was removed from office and the country changed sides. While turning around that event the account also enters other matters of the same period: the Iron Guard rebellion and the later execution of political leaders under communist rule. The film builds its events as a wide historical picture; how each side is told is the director’s own frame, and it is worth watching with that in mind. Gheorghe Dinica appears in Sergiu Nicolaescu’s hundred and sixty minute Romanian film, completed in 1994.