Most families have their fair share of tantrums. Few are likely to compare to the dysfunctional dynamics erupting in ILLEGITIMATE. The household horrors in this Romanian drama are grisly and unlikely to be ones you would want to witness alongside your mother, father or siblings. In exploding the niggling frustrations we usually repress in our home lives, however, Adrian Sitaru constructs an oddly magnetic picture – a disaster movie set around the dinner table.
It is at this dinner table that ILLEGITIMATE begins. The Anghelescu’s–Victor (Adrian Titieni), and his two pairs of adult sons and daughters–live in the same house and have congregated for a meal. Sasha (Alina Grigore), the youngest of the Anghelescu clan, has recently discovered her father informed on illegal abortions for the Ceausescu regime, and decides to drop the revelation amid proceedings. Conversation quickly devolves into arguments, which later become blows. The enraged Victor leaves the family to stay with a mystery lover, much to the consternation of his offspring – particularly the eldest daughter Gilda (Cristina Olteanu). A far more illicit liaison is occurring within the tribe’s home, however, as Sasha and her ironically-named twin Romeo (Robi Urs) use their brief moments of privacy to engage in casual sex. The pair don’t appear overly burdened with moral qualms. “Even Freud”, argues Romeo, “says that it’s an instinct everyone has”. (Since when has Freud been a good justification for anything?) The question of abortion comes full circle, however, as the romance results in pregnancy. The twins’ deliberations, and that of their family, make up ILLEGITIMATE’s second half.
Adrian Sitaru has a remarkable ability to lower any and all domestic encounters to their nadir, and the ferocity and authenticity of the protagonists’ portrayals is at times startling. Victor Anghelescu is a rotund brute, lingering over the family even in his absence. “God is time”, he proclaims, with the grave sincerity of a tea-time Leibniz, in the film’s opening moments: an attempt to evidence his wisdom. The philosopher turns pugilist, however, resorting to abuse when confronted with criticism. Titieni’s performance neatly extrapolates the inevitable thin skin that can come with parenting’s charade. Victor is self-righteous and self-important. He desperately wants to deliver his wayward progeny with the laws of the universe, to act as the elder statesman laying down the path. All too often, however, the patriarch struggles to live up to his own ideals, covering his insecurities with aggression and raising his stout hands to the heavens to cry “How did I create such imbeciles?”.
Like father, like son. Romeo is a baby-faced dictator, a boy you would never want to sit next to in school. He bullies his flighty twin into continuing their romance and later into keeping their child. His endless repetitions of “I love you” act as a kind of bludgeon, his nonplussed expression declaring his fundamental expectation that the statement will get him everything he wants. With puffy cheeks and a scowling mouth, the young adult is a molly-coddled little prince, embodying the mixture of dullness and entitlement often associated with the worst of millennial-ism.
Romeo’s sister is often left to pick up his slack. Eternally suffering, Sasha should be sympathetic. Alina Grigore, however, artfully transforms the pregnant twin into a vacuous wind-tunnel. Opinions blow in and out; none gain much residency. Even the twenty-something’s stand for her rights as a woman seem oddly hollow and regurgitated, as if copy-and-pasted from the comment section of her third most favourite magazine. Sasha doesn’t do much and is interested in less. Critiquing those around her, however, comes as a natural gift. Pushed about by her male family members, the daughter gains some empathy. Yet there is an obvious irony that in a film about a foetus, it is the parents (and grandparent) who are the biggest babies.
ILLEGITIMATE revels in asking its audience to hate its characters. The viewer, however, is simultaneously forced to identify with their very normal, if wildly exaggerated, flaws. The film plays like the most traumatic season of Big Brother you could possibly imagine – and the camera-work seems designed to evoke the spectre of reality TV. We watch the family from awkward corners, clumsily zooming in to close-ups during moments of intrigue, and lingering on expressions. As the wayward twins begin their tryst, a series of time-lapses show the evolution of the love-making, events faded into one another like edited highlights of the night’s activity. One would be forgiven for anticipating a Welsh accent warbling “Day 6 – Romeo and Sasha have finally sealed the deal.”
Like Big Brother and its inescapable compound, the film’s action is largely restricted to the family’s home – and the house is so lived-in it’s haunted. The cluster of gloomy rooms have been passed down generation to generation, The walls are dank and the paint peeling. Every blemish is a reminder of the mundane wear of daily lives that has gone before – and will keep on going. Big Brother’s contestants are voted out (a bit like Victor), but for most in ILLEGITIMATE, we suspect, their enclosed existence is permanent.
The audience shares the Anghelescu’s confinement to a degree. More commonly, however, they sit as the snooping fly on the wall, seeing and judging the events on display. This can prove uncomfortable viewing for some – ILLEGITIMATE’s utter lack of sympathy holds no prisoners – but it is very interesting. Vicariously experiencing family dysfunction is pretty irresistible, and if you can stomach the shouting and the pointing there is plenty the arguments that speaks volumes about the odd bonds that make up domestic relationships. Don’t expect smiles and hugs, this family is here to brawl.
With one proviso.
ILLEGITIMATE’s final scene juts out as particularly intriguing. The film moves forward six months, and surprisingly everything has turned out fine. Sasha and Romeo are having their baby, Victor has reconciled with the family, and everyone is living together in harmony. The group pose for a photo around the now peaceful dinner table, demonstrating just how much they’ve changed. But there’s something peculiar and contrived about this final scene. As the father’s voice-over returns, the characters seem rigid. A moral structure has been imposed on events, where rampant lawlessness formerly raged. The closing photo suggests a kind of self-portrait. We are no longer snooping on events from the shadows. We see through the camera lens, positioned in the corner by the Anghelescus’ eldest son. The group are smiling and the family hamster (in his cage – a sly reference to the Anghelescu’s continued imprisonment, maybe) is placed squarely in front.
Is ILLEGITIMATE’s idyllic last shot how the family wishes to present itself, divorced from the actual reality of the situation? Possibly. Eldest daughter Gilda cuts a forlorn figure, off on her own to the left of the shot. She has been a black sheep throughout the drama – the only family member who is not a narcissist, often arbitrating their disputes. Earlier in the film, her father ignored her attempts to relate to him anxieties concerning her recent engagement; and she disappeared from events entirely as the incestuous pregnancy loomed. Even within this halcyon self-portrait, Gilda’s discontentment is evident. What has happened between her and her fiancée, while we were watching Sasha and Romeo? Like the Big Brother contestant edited out of the show, Gilda cuts a melancholic figure. To be un-filmed, ILLEGITIMATE suggests, is to be forgotten.
Illegitimate is playing at the Arts Picturehouse on Thursday 25th October at 6.15pm.
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