Stuff and Dough

Ovidiu is a young man living with his parents in Constanța and wants to set up a business of his own. A man from the neighbourhood called Ivanov brings him an offer: he will take a package to Bucharest and get good money for it. What is in the package is not said; it is only called medicine. Ovidiu takes his friend Vali and Vali's girlfriend Bety into his van and sets off. Before long a red jeep appears behind them. It is Cristi Puiu's first feature and is counted as the film that started the Romanian New Wave. It screened in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2001. The mould is a road film, but the tension does not come from big scenes; it comes from the cramped space inside the van, where the camera mostly stays while the talk turns on unimportant things. The style Puiu would develop in his later films is already set here: long takes, everyday dialogue, no explanation.