by Allan Fish
(Romania 1970 217m) DVD2 (Romania only)
Aka. Michael the Brave
Prince of Wallachia
p Sergiu Nicoleascu d Sergiu Nicolaescu w Titus Popovici ph Mircea George Cornea ed Yolanda Mintolescu m Tiberiu Olah art Zoltán Szabó, Nicolae Teodoru cos Hortensia Georgescu, Mircia Milcovici
Amza Pellea (Mihai Viteazul), Ion Besoiu (Sigismund Bathory), Olga Tudorache (Mama lui Mihai Viteazul), Irina Gardescu (Contessina Rossana Viventini), György Kovács (Andrei Bathory), Sergiu Nicolaescu (Selim Pasa), Nicolae Secareanu (Sinan Pasa), Ilarion Ciobanu (Stroe Buzescu), Aurel Rogalschi (Rudolf II), Ioana Bulca (Doamna Stanca), Septimiu Sever (Radu Buzescu),
A sequence from this of all films is seen on TV in Spielberg’s E.T., a film that probably 99% of the millions who saw Spielberg’s film will never have seen or known of. Even now, the best part of two decades later, the film is barely known outside its native land and only exists on DVD courtesy of a thankfully English subtitled release there. This is a film that is historic in every sense, a film that not only is a monumental achievement as a historical, nationalist epic, but also in the history of film craft. A film that was influenced by so many that went before and which influenced in turn equally as many after.
The story is told in two parts, and details the brief reign of Wallachian prince Mihai (Michael) and his attempts to unite the Romanian lands of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. It begins in the early 1590s with the locals paying lip service to the ruling Ottoman Turks, and it’s to them Mihai is indebted to gain his titles, but he soon evokes a nationalist fervour and denounces the Turks and declares war on them. He defeats them at the Battle of Calugareni, but then has to face insurrection from the treacherous Bathory (of Elisabeth fame) family from the Hungarian part of Transylvania.
Mihai is a hero throughout the Carpathian lands, and coupled to the fact that he reigned only eight years prior to his death in 1601, makes him revered much as Richard the Lionheart or Henry V in England. He was a warrior, a statesman, a tactician and a supreme politician. Egotistical, perhaps, but a fervent nationalist, and he’s played with appropriate gravitas by Pellea, with the director himself giving a memorable performance as his old friend, sometime enemy Selim Pasa.
Some critics may point out that the battle sequences are more impressive than the domestic, and while that is true, they are still perfectly in keeping with the tone of the film. The battle sequences themselves evoke many to have gone before, from Alexander Nevsky and Henry V to Knights of the Teutonic Order and War and Peace. There are so many gob-smacking panoramas, vistas and tracking shots through the course of the several screen battles as to leave one open-mouthed. Its most powerful images – a blind man staggering through the desolation of a battlefield, graphic depictions of decapitation and impaling, dogs and crows picking at human and animal corpses alike in the aftermath of a battle, and numerous expansive panoramic shots of armies in chaotic conflict, often at high speed to capture the rhythms of battle – burn themselves into our retinas. More than any other director, it owes much to Kurosawa, most obviously in the opening sequence where a man in the midst of battle in a muddy swamp cries out “victory” and is immediately turned, Mifune-like, into a human porcupine, with arrows flying into his chest from all directions, but also in the sense of waste in battle. As if to repay the compliment, one can certainly see images similar to Nicoleascu’s film in Kurosawa’s later Kagemusha and Ran, while a charge through a forest surely influenced the battle with the Barbarian hordes in Gladiator. And for those able to see homages that come very much from leftfield, there’s even a shot of Mihai and his allies striding towards the camera as they ambush some Turks, and one would be forgiven for seeing Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch striding to meet Mapache. Superbly directed, strikingly photographed, passionately acted and altogether gripping, this is one of the great epics of modern cinema.
Excellent review of a film that admittedly many have not seen, but there will always be a question as to who influenced who and what influenced what?
Thats quite a screen cap you guys have posted!
I have interest in seeing this epic, which followed some many great films of its kind, including the one by Sergei Eisenstein.
I haven’t seen this one, but another excellent review that has me interesting in seeking it out. Sounds incredibly interesting to me.
And that really is a hell of screen cap!
Allan, if you can, forgive the over-simplification here, but it’s basically an epic set in a similar time and place as those early, brief war scenes in Bram Stoker’s Dracula? I can see you rolling your eyes already, but my history of that time and area is rusty and I’m too lazy to look it up. Yes, I realize I should probably be impaled on one of those spears for mentioning such populist American fare in the same breath as Romanian masterpiece.
In actuality, I despise this whole list making thing. Who is to say which films are the best and who really cares what this goys opinion is next to mine or someone else. Woody Allen has admitted pulically that awards for art are absurd and the tastes of each individual are all that counts. I honestly could care less if my friend Allan put this film at numder 49 or at number 1. The point of this is that these are the films Allan has a passion for. I myself love these countdowns for the knowledge I obtain and the fact that I’m turned on to films I had no idea existed. I look forward to Allan’s essays like I look forward to the new clues on LOST; you never know what’s coming next. This film is alien to me. But, thanks to Allan, I now have yet another film to look forward to and will hopefully capture my imagination. Terrific essay my friend. I can feel your admiration for this film with every typed sentence. Dennis
Of course, I do think, from an entertainment point of view, list making is fun. I will also be submitting a comprehensive list for the seventies (complete with commentary and screen stills). Not that my opinion counts for muchm. But, if I could turn someone on to a new film or one they have never seen simply because I express passionn, then I don’t mind penning 1 to 25. Again Allan, my appreciation to your fine work and passionate dedication towards your study and enjoyment of this medium. Dennis
Dennis, of course list-making is arbitrary. The book these pieces are from is not in numerical order but in alphabetical order. Just a list of the films that, in some all-encompassing film guide, would get ****½ or *****. Or, in Halliwellese, the list from which the **** and strong end of *** would be taken.
Sam’s the list fanatic, he keeps finding ways of trying to find out what my best films are because he’s liek a kid who can’t wait to find out what his Christmas present is. It’s part of his naturally wanting to bend the rules, as with his continual placings of a tie for last place.
Jenny, don’t worry about not knowing about Romanian history, who does? Just forward a century from Vlad and you’ll be about there.
“It’s part of his naturally wanting to bend the rules, as with his continual placings of a tie for last place.”
A tie for last place is perfectly normal, in fact a way of acknowledging the difficulty of eliminating a worthy film. I usually equate this as an expression of passion or enthusiasm, not as a negative thinker would liken (cynically) as a cheater or a rules-bender. WHO makes the rules, and why is a tie for last-place an issue. Everyone has their own methods of doing things, and mine at the very least conforms to what a number of professional critics find as proper protocol, not to mention a show of appreciation.
As far as being a “list fanatic” I’m no more that than you are, what will your own countdowns (which I welcome). Lists are what have made WitD take off as a blogsite, as so many movie lovers rightly use them as catalysts for engaging is stimulating discourse.
Yes, but I wouldn’t order them in a book, you are obsessed with polls and list, hell you even have that ridiculous title of Pollmeister.
Now, now you two.. If you can’t play well in the sandbox together I’ll have to send you to your rooms without supper. Honestly, the way you two fight you’d think you were a married couple. LOL!!!! I love this! I’m so glad I became part of WONDERS! Constantly puts a smile on my face and a laugh through my belly! Thanks Allan and Sam! You two are the best! LOL!!!! I think I just wet myself!
I don’t eat supper anyway – and let’s not bring you wetting yourself into this, it’s bad enough Sam has that flaming pisspot in his house without you adding to the urine overload.
I am assuming Allan is referring here to that admitted “indiscriminate urinator” our pug Goober. Does anyone on these threads find the same problem with Pugs?
Not if you shoot them.
Don’t most mammals empty their bowels and bladder upon expiration?
Just a thought.
btw, my dachshund McGinty is partial to pugs…
Well, a pug is one of the few dogs a dachshund can look at without getting a creak in the neck…
Well, a pug is one of the few dogs a dachshund can look at without getting a creak in the neck…
LOL. Be that as it may, you should see McGinty attempt to untowardly mount a pit bull…
I would love to see this film. I’m tirelessly reading pieces here at the moment. I do not possess the time or patience to comment for each piece I read this evening, but I just wanted to congratulate Sam and Allan (or Allan and Sam?) on the fantastic growth of their website! And it looks so different!
hello,
do you have any idea in what sequence does the Mihai Viteazul sequence appears in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. ? (what minute if possible, or at the beggining or at the end of the movie, or )
I would appreciate it 🙂
good review, and i also like the printscreen from the Mihai Viteazu. This movie and also the movies from it’s period, are the movies with whom whe grew up…
I’ve never heard of this film though I am more than familiar with the man.
The amount of colleges, roads, hospitals you see in his name on the streets of Bucharest is amazing. A hero indeed.
Thanks, Allan. This had passed me by. I’m trying now to see more and more Romanian films. I will see if I can somehow track this down.
You can find the movie on Google Videos, sadly with no english subtitles as of yet
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6010549769776372882#docid=-2716533920390593843
The link points to a different Sergiu Nicolaescu’s movie, not to Mihai Viteazul.
I’m writing this the day of the director’s death. He died, unexpectedly, from complications after surgery at the age of 82. May he rests in peace !
Indeed, Conumishu. Mihai was the greatest of Romanian epics.
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