I was happy to see quite a few interesting European co-productions with Romania lately, like the stunning Caníbal/Cannibal or the gentle Pădurea e ca muntele, vezi?/The Forest Is Like the Mountains.  Sadly, the Romanian-French thriller/horror/philosophical pic Cripta/The Crypt was not one of them. The film is currently running in theatres across the country and I could only recommend it if you are interested to watch one glorious mess.

The story itself is pretty simple: A French real-estate developer sees a chance to make a quick buck in the once splendid resort Băile Herculane. While he is in a crypt trying to destroy a Roman fresco which could delay his project, he is stuck in the crypt's inner courtyard when the gate closes and he can't open it from the inside. Days pass and none of the people that pass by want to open the gate for him, neither the unruly kids not the local prostitute and her pimp. Needless to say, he gets more and more desperate and things spiral out of control.

With such an improbable plot, it would take some skill to make it believable, even in a fictional context. Which can't be said in this case, unfortunately. Nevermind that the situation is seriously far-fetched, but why does everyone refuse to let the poor man out? The problem is that neither the acting (although the thesps do their best) nor the style make up for the film's incoherence, and the film feels just like a bad idea dragged out for a much too long time. It makes you wish the guy finally got out and the film ended.

The topic of the well-off making profit in poorer areas is worth exploring, especially in the Romanian current context, and it can be nicely linked to the idea of freedom, both individual and collective. I also appreciate a proper, straightforward genre film and nobody would have been more excited about a thriller with horror elements set in a claustrophobic place. Unfortunately though, Gheorghiță refuses to decide for a genre: as he states in an interview, The Crypt is neither a comedy nor a horror, but it likes to keep the audience 'in the fog'. And boy, is he right.

To make it worse, The Crypt is neither shocking nor particularly thrilling to keep you alert and its emphasis on the idea of isolation and freedom is so unsubtle that it takes away all the fun (there are so many shots of birds flying in the sky that it hurts). The humorous moments are also too few, to crude, and to awkward to add lightness to the film. Maybe if The Crypt hadn't taken itself so seriously, it would have been a much more fun ride.

Băile Herculane, whit its melancholy charm of lost glory, deserve more than this film. And so do we.

By Ioana Moldovan, columnist, ioana.moldovan@romania-insider.com

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