With ‘Three Kilometers to the End of the World‘ (the original Romania title is ‘Trei kilometri până la capătul lumii‘, director and co-writer Emanuel Pârvu continues one of the main themes of his previous film ‘Marocco’ (or ‘Mikado’) – the confrontation of teenagers with a world in which they do not fit. The question he asks in this film seems to be not whether teenagers are ready for life and the world of adults, but rather whether the world is ready to accept them as they are. Unlike his previous film, whose story happens in Bucharest, the story in his new film, which was presented in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, takes place in one of the most isolated locations in Romania – a village in the Danube Delta, separated or connected, depending on how we look at it, from the rest of the world only by water. The waters surrounding the village are for the inhabitants a means of transportation, a source of income, a border that isolates them from the world, but also a possible path to freedom. It is an opportunity for the screenwriters (co-screenwriter is Miruna Berescu) and the director not only to immerse themselves in a new social environment, but also to use the geographical isolation and the description of the closed rural community as amplifiers of the drama that unfolds before the viewers. ‘Three Kilometers to the End of the World‘ is a mature and solid film, which will captivate the viewers who will come to watch it, including those who are not fans of the genres to which it belongs.
The Drăgoi family works hard and is not doing very well economically, being indebted to the richest man in the village. A large part of their efforts are aimed at keeping their son, Adi, a high school student in the closest large city, Tulcea, in school, with the hope that he will be admitted to the naval school. The not-so-happy routine of their lives is interrupted by a violent incident. The boy, who came for summer vacation, is badly beaten one night, when leaving the disco. At first, the family suspects that the aggression is related to the parents’ financial debt, but soon they discovers that the reason is related to a personal secret: the boy is gay. Once the secret is exposed, everyone around him tries to ‘correct’ him: the parents, the police investigating the case, the priest. The closed society of the village, which can be seen as a scale reduction of the entire Romanian society, does not easily accept those who are different, even if they are born in their midst.
The story is told with a remarkable fluency and with the economy of means inherited from the Romanian New Wave, which now already past the age of majority. Emanuel Pârvu collaborates in this film again with the cinematographer Silviu Stavilă. They create long shots, often static or with minimal camera movements. The script is very well written, with dialogues that expose the way the characters react to events that turn their world upside down. Many of the feelings are, however, even better represented by looks. The teenager hardly speaks at all, verbal communication with his parents, the police, and the priest is not possible, and his personality is more expressive through silences. Like other directors with acting experience, Emanuel Pârvu picks the best cast and works very closely with his actors. Bogdan Dumitrache and Laura Vasiliu appear in the roles of the parents, both excellent, but the most remarkable creation is that of Ciprian Chiujdea in the role of Adi. An interesting role is also played by the well-known actor Adrian Titieni, the priest who tries to rationalize his brutal intervention in the young man’s life. I think that viewers will be left with ‘Three Kilometers to the End of the World‘ with the look like a cry of pain of a young man who can be a symbol of a category of people but also of a generation that claims the right to be different from those around them.