Ryna

by Ethan Nahté

Blackmail, abuse, neglect & poverty drive this young girl’s story.

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In a small Romanian village located within the Danube Delta, 16-year old Ryna (Doroteea Petre) lives the life of a pauper.  The slender young girl with short, wavy hair suffers the indignity of being stripped half naked and having her head sheered by her abusive & alcoholic father (Valentin Popescu) while teenage voyeurs look on. She’s constantly harrassed and molested by the mayor (George Custura) who is trying to blackmail her father so he can have her for himself. She’s forced to dress and be treated like a boy by her father while working at his garage and gas station (if you can call this small dot in the road a station). She’s never allowed to go to local events such as the carnival or a dance because her father needs her to work or help him get work by vandalizing local cars so they have to come to his shop to get fixed. Her mother (Aura Calarasu), father and grandfather (Nicolae Praida) all live in a small house and share one bedroom.

She is constantly wooed by the local postal delivery boy (Theodor Delciu) but she’s falling for the French anthropologist who (Matthieu Rozé) has come to town to measure the hands of the locals for his studies. It’s never fully explained why, but I would assume that he is measuring the hands of the Romanians to see how closely their ancestry may be to the original Roman invaders. She ends up helping the doctor briefly by taking photos of the locals for him, which is her real love.

This Romanian film (shot with the help of Swiss backing) is an interesting drama that turns tragedy, but it has a lot of flaws. Somehow Ryna has still taken several awards. It’s not slick like Hollywood films, so that will appeal to a lot of people, but it also is missing a lot of elements that could make it a better movie:

Once or twice there are scenes where music is being played by someone shown in the film, but there is no score. A score could help set the tone for so many scenes that are just kind of there and silent.

The editing is also a bit strange. There are some odd places that it is cut as well as some scenes that have little or no relevance to the movie. Other scenes are longer than they should be, although if music were added, the scenes would possibly play okay.

There are also moments where the film has a sepia tone to it. The film has a very stark look to begin with, but the sepia look almost appears as if the filmmakers had old film they were shooting with and it got washed out in the color positive print and color correction wasn’t an option.

Ryna isn’t bad, but it could be better with a decent underscore and some tighter editing. It’s due out in September 2006. I’d say it’s worth a rental, but with the only language offered being Romanian with some French, English subtitles and Dolby Stereo 2.0 for this widescreen film and the only extra being a trailer for the movie, there’s not a lot to make someone rush out and buy it. Petre did a fine job and could actually be a big European star, and possibly even an American star if she learns English. Director Ruxandre Zunide, on the other hand, should not necessarily look at Hollywood, but take a look at some other films and study a few more production techniques.