I really enjoyed Tony Gatlif’s Gadjo Dilo a few years back - documentary style film about a young French gypsy plunging himself into Romania in search of his roots. It’s a real eye-opener on an under-valued and historically oppressed culture on the edge of Europe. So I was looking forward to Transylvania, his new feature film, starring Asia Argento.
I don’t think I’ve been so IRRITATED by a film since that pathetic American remake of Luc Besson’s Nikita. The problem is, yes, the Romany music and culture and superstition and heritage shines through, and pretty much carries the film along as a superb travelogue [bits of the music are stunning - especially the two women with the home-made cellos] but the story, the actual narrative, is just soooo bloody annoying.
It goes like this: Zingarina (Asia Argento) arrives in Romania, with a friend, from Italy [I think they're actually French, but have been through Italy] in search of some Romanian musician whose child she is pregnant with. She tracks down said musician. He’s an absolute knob who dumps her and she goes off on a grief-stricken heart-broken search for something or other [I don't know what, another twatish bloke with stupid hair and a penchant for one-night stands?] through the Romanian countryside, finding redemption, of a sort, with the help of travelling trader Tchangalo, played by the wonderful, wonderful Birol Unel. Along the way Zingarina pretty much takes on the Romany culture, dressing in traditional gypsy gear and being mistaken for a gypsy when she’s with Tchangalo.
The film is billed as being about “persecution”. Tchangalo says his trade suffers when Zingarina’s with him, and at one point she’s told that because she’s pregnant and a gypsy she has “no right to drive.” But the trouble for me is that Zingarina quite clearly is NOT a gypsy. She’s just a spoilt fucked-up member of the European cultural elite who’s decided to DRESS UP AS A GYPSY because a dickhead bloke has broken her heart. She’s basically shagged some gypsy musician in Italy, is pregnant, is surprised when he says he wants nothing to do with her, then rampages round someone else’s country and culture acting like a spoilt brat.
I think we’re supposed to see Argento’s character as some kind of totemic figure representing female sexuality and rebellious spirit [of the type that sets people's souls on fire and makes them want to run off with the gypsies!] but I just don’t get that from her. There’s no back story about precisely why she’s so messed up, so all we know is that she’s pregnant and the father wants nothing to do with her. Well, you know. There are millions of people in that situation and hardly any of them go off screaming and smashing plates in a Transylvanian restaurant!
She’s basically a fucked-up well-off western European who, literally, dresses up in the clothes of another culture, cos she’s got a bit of a broken heart. I think a certain kind of fiery teenager will see her more empathetically [there's one point where she's asked why she's like this, and replies something like: "You imagine it, I've done it." ... then, I think I was actually grinding my teeth in frustration] but if she’s the embodiment of some kind of rock and roll spirit it’s more the bloated self-centred ‘pretend to be deep so I can get lots of sex’ of Jim Morrisson than the free-thinking high-flying celebration of genuine liberty, sexuality and intellect of Patti Smith.
The REALLY annoying thing about characters like this is you just can’t win, especially as a male viewer/critic - point out that the character has absolutely no redeemable features to make the narrative worth following, and someone’s bound to say ‘ah, but that’s because you’re scared of the unbridled passion of female sexuality allowed to roam free and wild through the uncharted hinterlands of a deep spiritual Europe of which you, with your white Anglo-Saxon repressed ways, have no knowledge.’ Right. And it’s not just that she’s a spoilt stupid brat with atrocious taste in men then?!
Having said that, the film is certainly worth seeing for the glorious scenes of Romany culture and the astonishing music. If your ears have been turned by the likes of A Hawk And A Hacksaw, you’ll definitely get a lot from it. And Birol Unel is stunning as Tchangalo, the travelling salesman who tries to make Zingarina see the love in the world - the scene where he rigs up the chandelier in the trees, hires the gypsy band and gets drunk is a five-minute masterclass in restrained acting. If only the same could be said for Argento’s hysterical run through the forest [see, there I go saying 'hysterical' and obviously that's putting me in danger of slipping into a misogynistic fear of "hysterical" women. I honestly don't think that's what I'm doing] - a scene which I think is supposed to make us see how messed up she is, leaving Tchangalo to, literally, pick her up. I’d have just left her. Honestly. Not worth the bother.
Oh fuckin’ ell. I’ve just found this. Zingarina has her own Myspace. How “now”. But even this is annoying. It says “after my boyfriend was deported.” He wasn’t deported. He makes it quite clear in the film that he left because he didn’t want to be with her. Another example of the film marketing itself as being about oppression when it’s nothing of the sort. Harumph.
