Closer to the Moon

Plot synopsis:
Post-war Communist Romania: In 1959 Bucharest, members of Romania's high society Max Rosenthal (Mark Strong), Alice Bercovich (Vera Farmiga), Dumi Dorneanu (Tim Plester), Răzvan Orodel (Joe Armstrong) and Iorgu Ristea (Christian McKay), known collectively as Ioanid Gang, announce to a crowd that they are shooting a film. A young café worker, Virgil (Harry Lloyd), is among the witnesses. Under the guise of making this film, the Ioanid Gang perform a heist of the National Bank of Romania. The following day, Virgil loiters around a film set and encounters the director, Flaviu (Allan Corduner), who requests him to buy vodka and give it to him whenever he asks.
Eight months before the heist took place, Max, Dumi, Iorgu and Răzvan, heroes of the resistance during World War II, celebrate New Year's Eve and the start of 1959, though Max is in the middle of divorcing his wife, Sonia (Monica Bîrlădeanu). Alice returns from Moscow with her and Max's son, Mirel (Marcin Walewski), in tow. She re-introduces Mirel to his father, and they begin to bond.
One night, the Gang celebrates Dumi's birthday and reminisce about their early lives as revolutionaries. For fun, they plot the heist in order to rile up anti-Communist Romania, but then realize that Max is talking their conversation seriously. He convinces Dumi, Iorgu and Răzvan to join him, but Alice says no as she has to raise Mirel. She changes her mind, however, when she learns that Mirel wants to join as the fifth person. Alice becomes enraged during the robbery when she seeing Mirel filming it. After a couple of months, Iorgu unintentionally implicates himself, and the group is individually located and arrested by Comrade Holban (Anton Lesser) and his police officers. Their arrests happen on the same day as the Luna 2 landing on the Moon.
One year later, Virgil is an experienced camera assistant. He is called in by his boss, who informs him of a short film about to start production. Virgil is assigned to record it. It is then revealed that the film is a propaganda piece about the Ioanid Gang's crime. The group, who have been convicted and are awaiting their execution, are ordered by the Securitate to star in the film. Later, Virgil informs Flaviu that he was present during the robbery and its danger has been greatly exaggerated by the authorities. When the Gang arrive for filming, Alice begins to bond with Virgil. When Flaviu gets drunk and passes out, Max takes over directing. While setting up a shot, he secretly gives Virgil contact details for the Gang's loved ones, requesting he contact them to let them know the group is alive and in prison. Later, Virgil makes an anonymous call to the first person on the list, and continues to do so with the help of his landlord Moritz (David de Keyser).
One night, Virgil is taken to Holban's house. Holban reveals that he knows Virgil has been doing favours for the Gang, and asks him to keep doing so in order to win their trust. He asks Virgil to find the sixth member of the group, Alice's son, as the Gang will be executed soon. During a commotion on set one day, Alice slips away. Virgil follows her to a house, where she says goodbye to her son. Afterwards, they have dinner at Virgil's house and sleep together. The next morning, Alice surrenders to the guards keeping surveillance outside, and leaves Virgil with sealed instructions. Virgil is approached by Holban and asked to write the address of Mirel, but he feigns unawareness.
Max's ex-brother-in-law (Darrell D'Silva) arrives and relieves Holban of duty due to negligence and exhaustion. Max asks him to send the Gang into space instead of executing them, but he angrily retorts that astronauts should be heroes and not traitors. Alice's letter asks Virgil to organize Mirel's Bar Mitzvah, which he does. Iorgu, Dumi, Răzvan and Max are sent before the firing squad. In voiceover, Alice says that, at the last moment, her sentence was changed to life imprisonment because she had fallen pregnant. The audience is then told that Alice emigrated to Israel with Mirel and her daughter.

Tags: comedy

Review:
A group of Romanian communists robs the National Bank.
Unless you have at least some basic knowledge about Communist Romania, this movie might seem very far away from a rating of 10.
As the story unraveled, it sucked us into an atmosphere that most of us feel is long gone, and nevertheless, so close to us.
Robbing a bank with guns in a communist country is like robbing a supermarket of its toilette paper.
And that is what makes this story so strange for us.
The historical background is fascinating (at least for us, Romanians).
This movie was like a breath of fresh air.
One full of poisonous gases, as seeing the movie, you will discover that there are many things about the human race that will upset you, but at the same time, air that provokes an uncontrollable laugh.
I did, because I considered it was the only way not to make the most depressing movie in the world.
A masterpiece that will most probably be considered as such many years from now, when people will start making movies about our not so egalitarian society..
Romanian director wins BIG.
I was so completely entertained by this little film.
I understand the historical data is highly accurate and appropriate for the Romanians that have lived in that exact period - which I respect so much .
Caranfil's directing took me by surprise because I have never expected this level of craft from a director also trapped in a country where films at this scale are only a dream.
I really hope Caranfil will make more movies like this - keeping the amazing dark, funny and artistic tone.
One of the best non- American films i've seen in the last couple of years..
It is always gratifying to find a film you do not know anything about and it becomes one of your favorite movies.Director/writer Nae Caranfil has taken an obscure incident in Soviet occupied Romania in the late 1950's and has offered it up to the 21st century cinema to give us a most pertinent message for today's world.That message is not robbing the bank!
The message is to be found in how the system (society) can single out certain groups and marginalize them into committing a desperate act --- and not really have any reason to do this act but to just fight back.The entire cast is perfect in their individual roles, the script is intelligent, the photography beautiful!
Some people have been executed without being guilty.
They have been forced to play a role in their fake trials and all ended in their execution.
A false history was created by some top authorities in order to teach some kind of a lesson to the people that worked in the communist regime structures.
This movie was not made for the public.
Add to that the fact that Pintilie's film has been done in those crazy times, when you could have gotten into big trouble for criticizing the regime.Now, here comes Caranfil, a great director, that takes the original story and twists it once again, turning these people into courageous heroes that opposed the regime.
Does this bring justice to the original six persecuted people?
There's a documentary, called Marele Jaf Comunist (The Great Communist Robbery) that reveals more of the true story.
Anyway, a drama is not supposed to tell the real story, and that's OK, but in this case, it's a pity that some people will take it as history.
The real six people have been persecuted in communist style with fake trials and five of them were killed.
Moreover, ironically, they had a history in participating successfully in bringing the communism to Romania.
So, why did the regime chose them in order to teach a lesson to the other communists, and probably to the Jewish communists?
The movie might leave you with the impression that all Jews were persecuted under the communism.
But many of the Jews supported the regime since the beginning.I know that many of the Jews have been disappointed by the communism that they previously believed in.
Most of the Jews went to Israel sometimes in the Sixties, but also, many Jews supported the communist repression, leading to massive deportation, imprisonment and execution of hundreds of thousands of Romanian citizens.
You will not see this in the movie..
Just so you know, I am Romanian, and I've lived there before and after 1989.
This film is full of historical inaccuracies (except the main subject, the robbery, which indeed took place in 1959).
I wanted to leave within 20 minutes, but that would've not been polite towards the other people in the theater, so I put up with it till the end, to my utter despair.
It reminded me of commie propaganda, except this one got a mushy Hollywood feel, and is cheesy to the bone.
I can't comment on the acting/directing/etc., since I wasn't able to watch it beyond the first half an hour; I was that disgusted with it.
I've seen movies by this director, and expected something decent at the very least.
If you frequently watch Hollywood B movies, then you'll be fine with it.
If you prefer intelligent, well articulated movies, don't bother.
Im proud of my romanian film maker Nae Carnfil.
Maybe the movie wont respect all the history in that time.
But the cast was excellent the costumes were great.And what i had liked the most, they respected the black jokes with allot of irony and cinism in them.
They showed the crazy leaders were in that time the real murders and how easily were peoples fooled by the system.The movie 100% need's an Oscar i hope he will get in time.
Also a word for Hollywood, "Bro come in Romania start to learn more history and than make more movies with romanian stories"amen.Message to my fellow romanian brothers, don't try to judge to movie be proud cause you are a ROMANIAN the movie is PERFECT.10+.
Vera Farmiga and Mark Strong played Romanian Jewish Communists who along with three others plot to rob the Romanian State Bank, a crime punishable by death.
The court and country decide to use the case to teach a lesson in propaganda film.
The burglars are acting as themselves in this film.
The burglary was more about robbing the bank but anti-Communist.
Vera Farmiga and Mark Strong gave the best performances in the film.
I would have liked to know more about it.
The film was shot on location abroad..
good movie, if you don't care about the history.
After wondering why reviews for this movie are quite polarizing, it became clear after watching the movie and reading about the history it is based on.The movie does work well as a fictional story, if you don't care about the history.
It is well done, has a catchy story, and an interesting way how it is told.
Unless you don't just watch Hollywood action blockbusters you might be fine with this movie.But the problem starts, when you take a look at the history.
The story behind this movie is not suitable for a fairy-tale where main characters are enjoying their role.
No wonder people will find this irreverent.
The movie itself does refer to the story it is based on, it also provides footage of the original propaganda film - and that does not match to the way the story is told.Other things that might be irritating is that main characters are speaking English and that Romania is too colorful for that time.
No problem if you get a dubbed version of the movie, no problem if you see it as a fictional story.
But the movie itself makes the connection to the historical background - and that's where it doesn't work..
You've probably never heard of the Ioanid Gang, or the bank robbery that they carried out in Bucharest in 1959.
I had never heard of it before I watched Nae Caranfil's "Closer to the Moon".
The movie isn't any kind of masterpiece, but sufficiently looks at this incident, and how Romania's Soviet-backed government arrested the gang and forced them to star in a propaganda film reenacting the robbery.One of the thing that we notice while watching the movie is the hypocrisy of the Eastern Bloc governments.
They claimed that they were establishing classless societies but there was a high society (and the people in the government had no qualms about themselves jewelry).
Later on, Nicolae Ceaușescu forced women to have as many children as possible, which overfilled Romania's orphanages.
Most of the heads of state in the Eastern Bloc were typical ideologues, but Ceaușescu sounded like a mental case.Anyway, the movie's worth seeing..
I chose it from a list of "On Demand" films on TV and the blurb was misleading otherwise I probably wouldn't have chosen it.
It struck me as an artistic film that's more about the acting and other aspects of its production, than it is about storytelling.
I found it to be similar to watching an early Fellini production in which a certain grotesqueness about the actors' faces and behaviors is supposed to be moving and often, humorous.
Perhaps if I had had more knowledge about the history upon which the film is based, I would have enjoyed it more?
Somehow, I don't think so.There's also the possibility that the discomfort I felt watching the film was the reaction the director and producers were going for.
Deja vu background on an aberrantly recurrent theme by Romanian directors.
Almost all high-rate Romanian directors have a somewhat perverted fetish about Communist Romania stories.
That being said, if you've seen a Romanian movie from the 2000's until present day, in over 90% of the cases it's some story set in Communist Romania,and how bad it was and how people where so against it all.
All of these stories are filled with one-sided prejudice opinions and resemble the directors view of the world.
So, this movie isn't any different from all the other famed movies our directors have launched in the past years about pre-1989 Romania.
The Ioanid gang, who where a bunch of superficial silly Bonn vivers on film where in fact a gang of guys (and a girl) with no ideological stance to their continuous dissidence before the WWII and afterwards.
They where acting against the regimes only for the fun of it, for the adventurous filling of being in contradiction with those in power , not because they opposed Nazism and Communism as ideologies.
They where Jews, who where oppressed by the Romanian Nazi collaborators and afterwards resented by the same Romanian Nazi collaborators(fascist legionnaires disguised as Communists and Bolsheviks as Romanian Iron Guard followers where to do after Germany lost the war) wrapped in the red flag of Communism.
But the storytelling, the way Caranfil romanticized a bunch of fools is not to my taste.
As a different approach by our distinguished directors, I'd like to see a movie about the atrocities committed in the years when fascists where in power in Romania, when our 'honorable' King Carol II imposed his dictatorial regime, banning parties and letting the legionnaires from the Iron Guard rise to power before slaughtering them as they, in return, set Bucharest on fire and killed many Romanian Jews and other personalities such as Nicolae Iorga.
It is more comfortable to pick the same over done subject of Communist Romania.
My advice to you after seeing this artistic movie is to see the real reenactment "propaganda" movie made by the authorities in 1960.
It's with the real participants and has a better way to sticking to facts as they occurred..
The synopsis sounded intriguing, and I'm a fan of both leads, so despite misgivings I went to see this film.
It's safe to say that Communists aren't renowned for their sense of humour, and are unlikely to be at their perkiest when facing death.
I was so bored I fell asleep, so never found out why they pulled the robbery, or who had fathered Alice's child.
The fact that this won 9 Romanian Oscar equivalents, including best picture, doesn't reflect well on that country's cinema.
Funnily enough there were no awards for the acting, which was the best thing, apart from the actual propaganda film at the end.
(The man on whom the leading character seemed based was as bald as Mark Strong, so why was this fine actor made to wear the least convincing toupee since Wayne, Stewart and Heston were last in films?).
It's a Jewish movie, but little else.
Now perhaps the fact that it was a movie about Jewish people should have been obvious from the description.
Fiddler on the Roof showed how to tell a story about underlying tragedy in a humorous and inclusive way.To paraphrase: Closer To The Moon is no Fiddler on the RoofIt is just a poorly made movie.I gave up watching it after 10 minutes, which was 5 more than my senses told me I should.
It doesn't.Very much a niche movie..
Set in 1959 and '60, in Bucharest, Romania.
and based on a true story, this film focuses on the plight of the group that was to become known as the Rosenthal Gang.
The group led by Max Radoiu Rosenthal (Mark Strong) were all once daring Jewish Resistance fighters vs.
the Nazis during WWII, in Romania.
They were all Communists as well, and when the Soviet Union seized complete control over Eastern Europe after the war, many of these Resistance fighters held elite positions in Romania.However now over a decade later, many of the fighters are being blacklisted and purged from the country's hierarchy.
As the film opens, the so-called Rosenthal gang is staging a daring daylight robbery of a bank transport van carrying loads of cash.
They're using the pretense of making a movie as the heist progresses, in the middle of Martyrs' Square in Bucharest.
Of course, this type of crime is unheard of in a Communist country.Flash forward a year, and we find the group has all been captured, tried, and sentenced to death by a firing squad for their crimes.
However, before their executions can take place, the government wants to recreate their story in a propaganda film, that will serve as a lesson for the Romanian people.The movie, written and directed by Romanian filmmaker Nae Caranfil, is presented in a most irreverent and satirical way, which unfortunately only at times came across as entertaining to me.
Towards the end of the film, as we finally learn the motivations of the "gang", it made little sense to me considering the dire consequences of what their actions could bring.Overall, I know this movie is presented in a most satirical way, but it had me "scratching my head" half of the time, specifically as to the path the main characters chose to take here..
Excellent movie.
Excellent movie.
A quintet of Jews seeing their status drop in postwar Romania rob a bank in Nae Caranfil's Closer to the Moon, only to be caught, convicted, and forced to reenact their crime in a slyly anti- Semitic propaganda film.
Though based on a true story, the film discards some of its claim to authenticity right off the bat, casting Brits and Americans in all the leads and having them speak English instead of Romanian; later, it will have trouble establishing the gang's motives for a crime they all but knew would lead to their execution.
The dialogue may not sell viewers on the motivations for a robbery where the loot was a nearly worthless currency, but the setting offers a melancholy that would be welcome elsewhere in the film..
Strange film.
Harry Lloyd, Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, and Anton Lesser star in "Closer to the Moon" from 2014.This is a fictionalized version of the The Ioanid Gang's bank robbery in Romania that took place in 1959.
The gang was made up of six Jewish Romanian intellectuals (at least in this film, though there were others involved apparently).
They stole Romanian lei, about $250,000 U.S. dollars from an armored car at the National Bank of Romania.This was a controversial robbery (to say the least) because no one exactly knows why they did it.
The Romanian lei could only be used in Romania and not exchanged for hard currency, though supposedly the money was going to Zionist organizations.
However, none of the robbers were Zionist.The film comes up with a theory.
These people were underground revolutionaries fighting the Nazis in WW II.
At that time, they knew they could be caught and killed at any moment.
The leader says to them, robberies are never committed in Communist countries, it's something done in capitalist countries.
Let's rob a bank and make people sit up and take notice and question the ideals of Communism.
If they are caught, the punishment is execution.They pull off the robbery under the guise of shooting a film.
They are caught and then re-enact the robbery for a propaganda film.
Were they forced to, were they told their executions would be canceled - no one knows.A strange film on a strange subject for sure.
My problem was that it was presented at times in a very lighthearted way with jaunty music which was odd given that the end result was going to be execution.
There's nothing wrong with using humor in serious matters - Divided We Fall is an example, as is To Be Or Not to Be, and The Producers - but this was an odd mixture that, while interesting, didn't come off.The film was also slow-moving and lacked excitement.In the real story, the woman, played by Farmiga, is not executed and ultimately freed because she had two children.
In the film she has one child, and a slightly different reason is given for her freedom.The acting was good, particularly from David DeKeyser and Alan Corduner.
This I don't believe is an accurate re-telling of that robbery, but if you have any interest in it, you may like this.