The Crazy Stranger (1997)

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

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

I saw this movie on IFC a few years ago just because the one sentence description got me interested. Something about gypsies and a guy searching his fathers past. Early in the movie the guy arrives in gypsy territory and a horse drawn cart goes by loaded with gypsy babes and they all start cursing him and taunting him..."f** you" "Lick my ***". I knew I was going to like this movie. My wife was a little shocked at the vulgarity but I laughed and laughed.This movie is most of all genuine, it just has a candor that makes you feel like the director really knew his subject, cared about it, and lets the story unfold without telling us what to feel and when to feel it.Gypsies are portrayed in the panorama of daily, ordinary life. Warm yet harsh, possessing a sort of anti-ethic ethic, they get by, celebrate life, survive, and value the moment.Indeed the main character finds his own inner gypsy and the people he is hanging out with begin to accept him. This is one of those films that stays with you because its full of moments you can relate to, yet are from a different world. Also because it goes back to what films are about - not just entertainment, which has its place for sure, but they are our stories, our ways of passing on bits of our wisdom and culture.

There is so much in this movie to love, first of all, the beauty of Romain Duris and Rona Hartner as they surrender completely to their roles as Stephane and Sabina. Just watching their performances is a liberating, freeing experience. Most of us would not have the courage to wander in a wartorn land, slog through barren lands, in the dead of winter, not knowing the native language just to look for a gypsy musician. I love the freedom of Stephane, the way that time is not a issue, there's no schedule to meet, no things to accomplish, just be touched by the people and the world around you.There are so many wonderful scenes but the one that stands out for me was when Stephane and Sabina are talking dirty, I mean real dirty, and it's wonderful. and when they get around to having sex it is raw and awkward, and unsexy and absolutely beautiful and when they're in the middle of making love he hits his head on the rock.I also love the dancing scenes, especially from the women. They lack any vanity, there's pure joy of expression oozing out of them.This was really a trip.I haven't seen much of Rona Hartner but she is a fox. Romain Duris is, to me, one of the great actors of our generation, His collaborations with Cedric Klapisch, and his recent role in "the beat that my heart skipped" along with this film not only shows he has great range as an actor, but also shows the immense joy he has in is craft. He puts everything, body and soul, into his roles, and he is one of the most natural actors around. It is curious to point out in these roles how well he does at communicating with someone who doesn't speak his language, the gypsies here, the group in L'auberge expagnole and Les Poupees Russes, and the Chinese tutor in Beat. To communicate as an actor, you have to be able to speak beyond language, and he does that time and time again.

Take a sparse rural Pennsylvania countryside village through a year-long drought, hit it with a category 3 hurricane, maintain a consistent overcast sky long after you sprinkle down a good New England snowfall, and you'll get the feel of the Romanian sticks and rural ghettos that make the setting of "Gadjo Dilo". Those who live by the cliché "times have changed" may want to kick themselves when they view this film. "Gadjo Dilo" is a good film for those intrigued by a trial-and-error gauntlet through the inhospitable and the discouraged for that will o' the wisp ever-present within one's grasp. Of course, you'll have to endure Gypsy culture and cleanliness made so absent that even the common slob might reconsider housecleaning. Like "Twelve Angry Men", there's a lopsided protagonist/antagonist displacement that transcends into protagonist unanimity, except that the feared gadje becomes a mild pincushion for criticism and then a source of amusement and glee.I like this foreign film for having a realistic manner of telling a story as well as a visual test to those who wonder what would happen if you ventured unprepared into a backwoods world of untouchables.

I rented the movie wishing to see why would Vadim Tudor , the leader of the ultra-nationalist movement in Romania , be angry at a relatively unknown actress of Jewish descent but born in Romania , called Rona Hartner.I found this to be one charming movie but please, do not, by any means , take it as a documentary or search any sociological value in it. Otherwise you might be tempted to believe that the gypsies are a cute, merry, high-spirited people kept in cruel slavery by the oppressing Romanians. There are two sides to every story, remember that, and the movie does a wonderful job at presenting one and only one passionate side of it. Check Kusturica's movies for a more complete/impartial vision on gypsies , their joys and their troubles, without the romantic halo that Tony Gatlif casted upon them in his movie. Bear in mind that the Romanians (even as depicted in the movie) are as poor and oppressed as the gypsies, and , to spit it out, that the "the uncontaminated world of the gypsies","the gypsy culture" and "the chaotically beauty of gypsies" are to be placed in the context of active refusal and defiance of established modern society rules, an attitude that the majority of the gypsies still openly professes - an attitude which makes them at least undesirable for the majority in any of the countries they are living - and this is what Gatlif doesn't show and Kusturica rejoice in displaying.What's enjoyable here is the human story , at times joyful, at times moving and full of sorrow - a story that transcends the ethnic borders of the movie. As a Romanian who lived quite a while in a mixed nationality village and knows "the subject" quite well, I have to congratulate Rona Hartner on a perfect impersonation of a 'piranda', and Izidor Serban on a moving role that could have started a career.And I do understand why Vadim Tudor was angry at her ;-).