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.

The story is not inherently anything that can "only" take place in Hungary, and as you can tell this theme has been played in films for some time with movies like The Full Monty or Brassed Off!, but actually is not as seedy as the premise sounds. The sperm bank thing is just a hook to get audiences into the theatre, but does not lower itself too often into making toilet or sex jokes. The actress who played Manuela was pretty good, and I like that the film gave Gica's character another twist at the end as to his family life, that was revealed by his visit to the sperm bank, giving his character a bit more humanity and less selfishness.

I assume the title is a play on Of Mice and Men, although it only fleetingly shares plot points of that book.