Philanthropy (2002)

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

That could be a unique genre of movies where it's hard to categorize, it's definitely comedy, but it's also sociopolitical drama and psychological tragedy, it could be even categorized as thriller and as fantasy, it has it all, it deeply describes post- communism Romania as much as it does for many other countries as well where life gets harder on intellectual educated professionals while it gets easy on crooks and parasitic creatures, famous honored poets and novelists can't afford a drink while models and "nouveau riche" earn loads of money doing nothing valuable, where you must be fraudulent and inauthentic in order to gain your spot in the new society. Nae Caranfil is a innovative director, I'd recommend "The Rest is Silence" and "Closer to the Moon" of his films, while Mircea Diaconu is a really talented and persistent actor, you can also see him in "Asphalt Tango". This movie is simply shocking, enchanting, charming and - above all - deep.

I can't say that "Filantropica" is the best romanian film ever made. It may be the best of it's kind, but there are many romanian movies of different genres I saw and I recommend you to watch. To return to this movie... I have to say is very well done entirely, with an excellent script and a very good acting. On the other hand I have to contradict other users that wrote here about it's genre. It isn't a comedy at all. It's a DRAMA. A drama of the common romanian people in Romania's transition period after the revolution in '89. I admit it's a drama with comic accents, but not a comedy under any circumstances. So you should modify this movie's genre in DRAMA/comedy. Anyway it's a sinuous movie with expected and unexpected events reflectind almost in entirely the reality of those years.I really recommend it 100% !

In Romania they call it the 'transition' period. Whoever invented this term meant to describe the period between Communist Romania and a normal society, a period where people can recover dignity, learn speaking the truth and trust their human fellows. The issue is that in Romania, as in all other former Communist countries this period was marked by a great amount of dis-illusions, by many broken dreams and destinies as the recovery proved not to be easy neither on the economic not on human plans. The place of human relations was taken by tricks and robbery, the emptiness of the Communist slogans was replaced by the emptiness of the commercial TV, surviving as a human being is tough.'Filantropica' presents a point of view which may be unknown or hard to catch for many non-Romanian viewers. The Romanian literature and theater has a great satiric tradition, and the founder of absurd comedy theater Eugene Ionesco was of Romanian origin. This is where the villain characters in 'Filantropica' like the one of the master combinator played by Gheorghe DInica come from, although the figure of the little professor of literature dreaming to overcome his miserable condition (through money? through love?) played by Mircea Diaconu is as universal as a Benigni or Woody Allen would have created it.Some comments consider 'Filantropica' as the best film of the Romanian cinema. I believe that this is an exaggeration, there are certain flaws especially the extended and un-justified use of off-screen voice in the first part of the movie. 'Moartea Domnului Lazarescu' of Cristi Puiu, another movie inspired by the reality of the same period is a better film, with somehow a more optimistic message. Yet this is an important film about this complex period in the history of Romania.

I am used to Romanian movies being dark, verbally violent, poorly acted, poorly directed, wanting to shock, yet saying nothing. Most of them are like that, but not this one. This was actually a dark comedy with almost no violence. The threads of the story do end in despair, but not in tragedy, giving the viewer that "jigsaw puzzle completed" feeling.The acting of the main characters was superb, even the extras did their job well; the script contains a too complex and interesting story to be told here, all I can say is that it's a great tale; the music gives a Romanian feel to the movie and nicely selected for this particular idea; the directing has to be good, since almost none of the actors slipped, none of the scenes made me say "Cut" :) and the movie carried me from the first scene to the last with no discrepancies.This movie may have turned my pessimistic view of Romanian film-making around, along with "Asfalt Tango", which is a movie of the same caliber and quality (with the same great main actor ) and I am looking forward to good, watchable movies like these two, with great and original stories.