director: Hanno Hofer
This Romanian short movie is one of the few that questions racism (even if in a subtle way, probably not even observed). In comparison to other Romanian movies of the period (like Occident, directed by Cristian Mungiu, 2002, where racism is openly used for comic relief), Hanno Hofer's short makes fun of the racist friend that verbally attacks a Roma passerby (calling him a cioara or crow, a very derogatory term in Romanian and asking rhetorically how the heck these folks come here, time 2:01). The irony is that the main character's son is also a foreigner in another country, while Roma people were enslaved for 500 years for being foreigners and are still treated as evil strangers. The question of being a foreigner reveals the double standard of Romanians that hate whom they perceive as non-Romanians (based on skin color, like in this case) and admire the condition of being a foreigner in US for example, where everything is fine. This short movie explodes two contradictory ideas: admiration for the Western acceptance of foreigners and acceptance of local forms of racial discrimination that transforms the Roma into an ultimate Other. And this contradiction can be an important source for humor and criticism.
No comments:
Post a Comment