Doc Corner: Sundance winner 'Acasă, My Home'

By Glenn Dunks

Acasă, My Home’s opening passage ends with a single shot that is so startling it would normally be quite hard for the rest of the film to live up to its surprise. It’s little wonder then that it won a Special Jury Award for cinematography at 2020’s Sundance Film Festival, having some of the best use of drone documentary photography I’ve seen—something that should silence the naysayers of this common doc tool, at least for a little bit.

It’s lucky then for first-time Romanian filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc—previously only known as a journalist and for featuring in something called, yes, Sick Chicken: What You Need to Know—that drama follows his subjects wherever they go...

They are the vagabond Enache family, residents of a ramshackle cardboard house located deep in the heart of Bucharest Delta, a massive nature reserve on the edge of the Romanian capital.

In these captivating opening scenes, the family’s nine children preserve their way of life by hiding from family services who come to inspect their rubbish-strewn home. They fish for dinner in the park’s reservoir using rods made of thick, sturdy reeds that grow along its edge. Their mother makes what appear to be meals made of cabbage and sausage while shouting expletives at the government’s agents threatening to take her children away. The lush greens of nature from these opening scenes, mingling with the sounds of insects, childhood play and bickering plus the ever-present honking of swans, recall some sort of familial version of Lord of the Flies, far away from the smoke-spewing roads of towering buildings of the city just over the tree-line.

Much like in last year’s superb Romanian doc Collective, the government soon makes its presence known, forcing the Enache’s out and into community housing to which their lifestyle is unaccustomed. They are berated by neighbours as gypsies and their landlord demands they leave. While Acasă’s opening half is one of remarkable access to a idyllic (for them, if seemingly untenable) way of life, the movie’s second half is one of struggle and personal reflection.

Little is spoken about how the family came to live in the nature reserve, and what we do glean is contradictory. But it becomes obvious that city life brings out an element in some of the family, particularly the parents, that wasn’t there before. Or, more accurately, it has mutated. While they may have a steadfast distrust for society, they at least didn’t need to be among it before.

Yet despite this, the children are shown to thrive. At least temporarily in between mournful nostalgia for the simplicity of life on the reserve. They appear to enjoy going to school (when they actually attend), and find childhood rituals of ball games in the street come naturally to them. They also must confront the realities of social racism and police brutality. "Somebody call the police", asks one of the children. "We are the police" is the response. Indeed. Old habits often die hard, but for the most part they are shown to be enjoying their new lives despite the reality of now not just being poor, but poor and accountable to a society that doesn’t think they belong there.

Much of the second half focuses on eldest son Vali. He finds a girlfriend, and even a job in the park where his life’s experience makes him an ideal for... maintenance. But as these things signal a turning point, so does his discovery of an addiction to gambling and an unwanted pregnancy. As he quite astutely puts it when he suggests an abortion (a Catholic no-no for the 15-year-old girl), it will be three children in a household together. The concern on his face is as understandable as it is palpable.

At only 86 minutes, Ciorniciuc and editor Andrei Gorgan rarely allow their story to lag, although it’s lack of any big climaxes mean broader appeal like that attained by Collective is harder to figure. And with so many characters—particularly children, but also the various social workers and helpers who drift in an out to assist in their transfer to society—many are left without any insight made into their emotions. Mother Niculina, too, and her savage, violent insults feel under-utilised through its narrative with the director preferring to maximise the father-son dynamic.

Acasă, My Home is about life on Romania’s fringes, often made with the same blend of rambunctious energy and meandering sensibility that the family has. In its strongest moments, it captures the maddening juxtaposition between a family that is happy and content, and the uncomfortable realities of life that they are being denied. Like any child emerging into adulthood, we see this family awkwardly confront the real world and if our experiences with other Romanian cinema is anything to go by, it likely won’t get any easier once the credits have rolled.

Release: Currently playing virtual theatres through Kino Marquee as well as select theatres (remember to only attend in person screenings if you feel safe to do so).

Oscar chances: It has buzz, although it would be quite an achievement for two Romanian documentaries to make the final five. A long list placement wouldn't surprise me, and even though it is a late-breaking release for Oscar eligibility period, who knows how long it has been on their screener system to have developed fans in the Academy?