The action takes place in Bucharest, in 1972. For seven years, the Ceaucescu regime has been eroding individual freedoms and establishing its totalitarianism. Ana, the young heroine of Radio Metronom, will make the painful apprenticeship, while his first heartache will turn into his first great disillusionment. Winner of the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, Alexandru Belc’s film dazzles and terrifies in equal measure.
Visually, Radio Metronom turns out to be superb indeed. Apart from the meticulously composed plans, but never to the point of ostentation, the work on the light is admirable. The one on color is just as important. The red appears purple and the blue, turquoise: the palette is thus cooled, in tune with the era and the events portrayed. It must be said that by securing the collaboration of Tudor cinematographer Vladimir Panduru (the recent NMRby Cristian Mungiu), Alexandru Belc ensured an exemplary bill.
As for the terror, it does not emanate from some horrific momentum, but rather from the secretly desperate atmosphere that the filmmaker methodically forges, like the dictatorial regime in the background which always tightens its grip on the population — and on Ana.
Ana whom we meet when her boyfriend Sorin announces his imminent departure. Heartbroken, Ana goes the same evening to a clandestine party at a friend’s house where Sorin is to come. While Ana is obsessed with the idea of holding back her lover, her comrades talk about a letter, or declaration, which they intend to smuggle to Radio Free Europe, which they then listen to illegally.
But now, alerted to the holding of this innocent party, perhaps by a “good citizen” informer, who knows, the Securitate takes everyone on board.
By dint of wear
The film has three clear acts, namely the evening where we can observe at leisure these teenagers who are simply trying to have fun, to look their age, then the subsequent interrogations in the premises of the Romanian secret police and , finally, the ambiguous tomorrows of Ana.
The second part, anxiety-provoking, reports on a regime that annihilates the slightest beginning of rebellion among a youth who must be “broken” early so that they do not want to revolt later. Violence, threats, pressure, negotiations aimed at extracting denunciations… When the authorities fail, the parents are put to contribution, in the hope that they will collaborate in order to spare their offspring, even if it means sacrificing the other young people of the gang: every man for himself, divide and conquer, etc.
However, she who had seemed until then to have only for her little person, Ana turns out to be the most pointed against the maneuvers and methods of the Securitate. Which pushes her to make a confession, just one, which will upset the rest of things.
The result is a poignant portrait: that of a carefree young girl who acquires a premature lucidity the hard way. It must be said that Mara Bugarin, who plays Ana, is extraordinary. The evolution of his expression, first sulky, stubborn, then haggard, is fascinating.
With a keen critical sense, Radio Metronom also shows how people trapped in a toxic system sometimes come, through wear and tear, to become accomplices of their torturers.