CIFF 2012: Of Snails and Men

This Romanian film taking place in the 1990s follows a popular movie theme--laborers at a government-run auto plant face potential shutdown. The factory is being bought and privatised by a French company that plans to make it into a snail cannery. It only intends to rehire 300 employees, leaving a couple thousand out of a job.

One of the guys, Gica, sees an ad for sperm donation, and rallies the guys to take this opportunity to raise enough money to buy the factory themselves. The husband and father Gica is also having an affair with the staff secretary Manuela, but she is taken with the son of the French businessman, thus giving the story more complexity.

When Gica and his coworkers try their wacko plan, it does not turn out well and in fact is not successful at all. Manuela, as in many of these types of stories, at first is played just as a sex object, but the story gives her character more backstory and rounds her out, and even gives her character integrity as when she hears Gica intends to stay with his wife, she still decides to help him against the French.

I Love Valentine's Day!: Hello! How Are You?

Here is a foreign love story.  This unconventional romantic story ends with a believable yet still not quite happy ending.  A married couple unbeknownst to each other chat online and fall in love again. This takes place in Romania and I guess the internet is not as pervasive there/not everyone has a computer. The couple, both named Gaby (Gabriel and Gabriela) seem happy and committed, but uninspired in their marriage. They have a teen son who seems to only think about sex, and has been bugging them for a computer, "for school" he says (but we know it is for other reasons!) Neither of his parents are knowledgeable on the computer.

Gabriel (Ionel Mihailescu) works as a page turner for a small orchestra and is often on tours away from home. We find out later that he was an accomplished musician but a hand accident forced him to give up his performance career. During one tour a musician asks him to accompany him to a tryst so that the friend can break up with his mistress, but as they end up having sex Gabriel spends time at an internet cafe and online in a chat room, which he has never done before.

Gabriela (Dana Voicu) works in a dry cleaner’s shop, where they have a new computer system she must learn. Her younger and more sexy coworker shows her a chat room where, without realizing who each other is, Gabriela and Gabriel connect and eventually fall in love. They both feel guilty but also in that blush of love, feeling as if the other really understands them. Although neither is truly unfaithful, either with their internet personas or other people in their physical lives, they spy on each other in innocent meetings with others and assume the worst.

Meanwhile, their son has his own sexual misadventures, where he THINKS he wants any one of the randy girls who pursue him, but instead falls for the nerdy girl instead.