California Dreamin'

Inspired by a real-life incident, California Dreamin'—directed by Cristian Nemescu, who tragically died in a car wreck during editing—is a dryly funny yet scathing portrait of culture clash, bureaucratic impotence, international arrogance, and ingrained corruption in post-Ceauşescu Romania. Armand Assante stars as U.S. Marine Capt. Doug Jones, a NATO commander whose attempt to deliver equipment during the war in Kosovo in 1999 is derailed by Doiaru (Razvan Vasilescu), a blatantly corrupt railway station manager in a Romanian backwater who delays the shipment in a petty show of power and insolence, claiming lack of proper authorization. While the mission gets mired in ineffectual diplomatic rituals and bureaucratic musical chairs, the glad-handing town mayor (Ion Sapdaru) uses the opportunity to sell his desperate hamlet as a potential tourist destination to his captive audience—and the stationmaster's daughter, Monica (Maria Dinulescu), sees the arrival of the soldiers as a chance for escape. Under Nemescu's sardonic humor lies genuine frustration over the state of his country, but the filmmaker saves the most cutting satire for the Americans: the partnership between the opportunistic mayor and the stymied captain becomes a disaster of failed communication, broken promises, and unfortunate expectations—a vivid allegory for contemporary U.S. foreign policy as seen by the rest of the world. A Cannes festival prize-winner, this is highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)