Sadly Madison's Romanian Film Festival was merged into the Wisconsin Film Festival this year and so we got a few more films from that country at this year's WFF than we would normally. I saw one - Medal of Honor.
It tells the story of Ion I. Ion, an old man who lives in a fairly meager apartment with his wife Nina. It is December 1995 and as the film opens they are in bed where Nina pulls the covers off of Ion. This makes good shorthand for their relationship. The two barely seem to talk with one another. And we learn that they have a son, Cornel, who lives in Canada. Like his mom, Cornel is not particularly interested in speaking with his father. Indeed, Nina reads a letter from Cornel in which he asks if his father is still alive. One day Ion learns that he is to receive a medal of honor for his bravery during World War II. The problem is that he can't think of anything he did to merit such an award.
Ion sets out to discover why he's being awarded the medal and begins his quest by going to a veterans group. They don't have any information there but refer him to the Ministry of Defense. At the Ministry he is forced to traverses the gray halls of Romanian bureaucracy. Ion must deal with a surly pregnant woman who ignores all known laws of customer service. All she can tell him is that is following orders by giving medals to the names on a list. He also meets up with other former soldiers including a rather vulgar one who is symbolized by the nudie calendar hanging on his wall.
Despite not knowing exactly why he was given the medal, it makes Ion happy. People want to have their picture taken with him and a group of kids with toy guns ask him about the war. But the situation also warrants reflection. In the midst of struggling with memories of war that are 50+ years old, he also pulls out letters that he wrote to Nina at that time. What went wrong with his relationship with his wife and son?
Ion eventually learns that his medal was intended for another man with the same first and last name but different middle initial. Our Ion desperately tries to hang onto his newfound source of pride by visiting this other Ion and getting him to sign paperwork renouncing the medal. The correct recipient doesn't want it but, unlike our Ion, doesn't want to look back. The pair are polar opposites. One needs the medal as a focal point for understanding the past while the other views it as a symbol of times best forgotten. In the end, Ion is forced to buy another medal from a pawn shop.
I suspect that a lot of this film went over my head. Not having lived in an Eastern Bloc country, it's impossible for me to point out things which surely pertain to the legacy of the Cold War and Romania's attempts to move beyond it. The Romanian bureaucracy is surely being parodied here as we have the single-minded woman at the Ministry and the folks at Central Heating who ensure that Ion and Nina's apartment is either freezing cold or too hot. On a more personal level, Ion's story was touching. He views the bestowing of the medal as a chance to reconcile with his son and get to know his grandchild. Cornel and his family visit Ion and Nina around Christmas. The film closes with a wonderful long take at the dinner table that would have driven local blogger Michael Donnelly to tears for its Romanian "inefficiency". People out of focus at the edges of the foreground eat, talk, and laugh while Ion and Cornel sit in the back next to each other uncomfortably. Director Calin Peter Netzer forces us to watch their facial expression and their hands to get a sense of what is happening inside the characters which becomes obvious when Ion begins to sob.
Like I said above, I'm sure I missed a lot here not being familiar with Romania. The film takes place in 1995 which means that the memory of Communism and the bloody revolution of 1989 were still fresh in the minds of Romanians. My guess is that Ion represents something akin to how Romania deals with its past today. Even so, the film worked on a more personal level with an individual seeking to reconcile his own past.
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