TRANSYLVANIA

I am assuming anyone reading this is familiar with Asia Argento’s ever growing body of work. I would also hazard a guess that despite a diverse range of creative undertakings, it’s her genre work that stokes your curiosity and attention. Is it then forgivable to assume, as I did, her appearance in a movie called TRANSYLVANIA is prelude of sorts to her role as Lucy in her papa’s dubious three dimensional slant on the Dracula legacy? Oh how wrong I was...!

Asia stars as the forlorn Zingarina who, along with having a bun in the oven for a couple of months, is desperate to rekindle her passionate relationship with Milan (Marco Castoldi), the father of their unborn child. Her search starts with a trip to Transylvania, as she believes his deportation from France has sent him back to his Romanian hometown. Along with her two loyal female friends, the accordion playing Luminitsa (Alexandra Beaujard) and soul mate Marie (Amira Casar), the trio scour the local nightclubs, bars, cabarets and carnivals in the belief they will encounter her piano playing lover.

Just as their spirits are waning, Zingarina hears the unmistakable style of Milan’s melodic tinkering. Her instincts are partly right. The beautiful music is indeed that of Milan, but her dreams of an amorous reuniting are way off the mark when Milan abandons her in humiliating fashion. Devastated, Zingarina immediately starts to embrace the unknown. Ignoring Marie’s pleas to return with her to France, she drinks, she dances, she smashes plates (don’t worry is customary!) but most significantly, she meets Tchangalo (Birol Unel). Together they embark on a road trip filled with passion and danger as they attempt to make sense of the cards that life has dealt them.

Ok so as you may have gathered there are no frigging vampires in this 2006 vehicle for Asia Argento! But with that disappointment out of the way what exactly do we have?

For starters, this is a sumptuous movie to look at. The DVD copy I had was acutely sharp and represented the vast range of colours and tones throughout the movie with precision in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

Starting with the opulence of French nightlife and carnivals, the day and night scenes were equally striking. The sand ridden road trip contained a distinctly dusty texture before the blinding whiteness of the snowy Carpathian Mountains in the final act concluded the drama. But despite the array of varying and distinct landscapes there was a truly surreal and standout sequence that topped the lot. When Zingarina indulges in a bit of spiritual cleansing involving a pale of milk, the warmly lit setting awash with candlelight was truly hypnotic. It’s worth mentioning here that the film has English subtitles with no less than three different languages (French, Italian and Romanian) being spoken. That said, it is not a movie laden with dialogue and as you can hopefully tell, this aspect did little to distract from its cinematic strengths.

The uniqueness didn’t stop at mere visuals. The soundtrack was a heady mix of Gypsy violin music, from the intoxicating up tempo cabaret frenzy to the slowed down melancholic harmonies that almost wept out of the speakers. The musical score superbly captured the essence of the movie’s emotional variation, gave the indigenous extras and locations substance and was integral to the narrative.

The movie had a virtually improvised chic to it, and needless to say, this suited Ms Argento’s energetic style perfectly. She gives quite a performance displaying a bountiful range of emotions throughout the picture. Starting with the elation of rediscovering Milan before her abjection thrusts her into a haze of sheer anger. An expectant mother she might have been, but By Jove, she could still launch a barrage of punch and kicks, albeit at a pillow! Then there was abandonment as she sways to the violin driven folk music finishing with a genuinely petrified portrayal of a quite harrowing childbirth scene. Argento has sometimes been accused of having an overzealous presence and her endeavours in TRANSYLVANIA will do little to convince her detractors otherwise. Whether she is screaming, dancing, fighting or erm, screaming louder, I found her performance to be piquantly majestic.

Although essentially a love story, the movies stylish aesthetic and distinct attitude could hardly invoke accusations of being ‘slushy’. I even sensed a subtle air of Jodorowsky (Santa Sangre in particular) about Tony Gatlif’s film. Zingarina’s protective The Eye of Horus tattoo on her palm being mysteriously wielded, the impulsive feeding of hitchhikers, Zigarina and Tchangalo’s impromptu and public love making being hazardously interrupted by a scavenging grizzly bear all combined to give the picture a bizarre and unpredictable edge.

If you are a fan of Asia, you will no doubt appreciate TRANSYLVANIA as the lens magnetically follows her throughout. At the very least, Gatlif’s delving into Romanian Gypsy culture in this slice of World Cinema proves there is more than the myths of fangs, capes and bats hidden deep within the Carpathian mountains…

Review by Marc Lissenburg