Ziarul: Variety Autor: Editie Speciala- Hall Data: 1988-10-05

Jacob
(ROMANIAN)

A Romaniafilm and Artexim production. Directed by Mircea Daneliuc. Screenplay, Daneliuc, from stories of Geo Bogza; camera (color), Florin Mihailescu; editor, Maria Neag; sound, Horia Murgu; art direction, Magdalena Marasescu; costume design, Svet-lana Mihailescu. Reviewed at N.Y. Film Festival, Sept. 30, 1988. Running time: 117 MIN.

With: Dorel Visan, Cecilia Birbora, Ion Fiscuteanu, Maria Seles, Livia Baba, Dinu Apetrei. A film of complex psychological and social meaning, "Jacob" concerns oppressed miners and their families who are caught in an ugly system that is, at least to some extent, of their own creation, and derives from manţs nature.

Dorel Visan in the title role is extraordinary, especially as he is alone (without words) for the last 20 minutes of the film.

Jacob is a tall husky miner who has married the widow of a suicide and lives with her, her mother and four small children in a small house. Work in the local goldmine is so dangerous and pays so little that some miners risk terrible punishment to steal gold ore, hiding it on their persons as they leave the mine. Inspectors and militia guards are vigilant, however, and suspected miners betrayed by informers are stripped naked for searches, sometimes even forced to take powerful laxatives, so the search becomes doubly thorough and humilating.

Jacob raves against the brutal authority of the mine operators, backed by military government. Who are these authorities? The story is based upon a Geo Bogza work published in 1942, concerning conditions in the 1930s, when Rumania was a corrupt monarchy with a working class in semi-slavery. It would be easy to locate the time and atmosphere of the film accordingly, within an unjust capitalist system* Yet director Mircea Daneliuc invites the audience to find its own meanings.

We may equally place the time of the film within modern Communist Rumania, providing a totally different political context. The filmjs meant as a fable to have universal and timeless relevance, quite apart from transient regimes that come and go.

Jacob as a Rumanian miner is the vessel for a kind of Everyman. An admirable, passionate man, he also is devious, lecherous, abusive to his wife & children, and a thief of gold ore. Jacob asserts his fallible humanity so forcefully that we love the man even as we fear for him.

Hitch.