Drawn Closer to the Moon: The World Premiere of Nae Caranfil’s Film, Featuring Harry Lloyd

While Romanian writer and director Nae Caranfil may not have intended for Closer to the Moon (2011/13) to show an alliance with any particular character in the ensemble picture, in various ways, Harry Lloyd’s Virgil, a character whose slight outsider status aligns him with the audience and slight insider role makes him at least partially complicit in crime, steals the show.  Yet, it is another kind of “theft” that remains at center in this thought-provoking film of an overlooked story.

 

The foreign-made film, which currently seeks a distributor and has taken over two years to be shown publicly, made its world, cinematic debut at the Walter Reade Theater (New York, New York) during the Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema 2013 film festival, which is the eighth year the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Romanian Film Initiative have collaborated on such a project.  It was the first film aired during the festival, whose theme this year is “propaganda,” and certainly got Making Waves off to a rolling start, if the sold-out showing, cramped theatre, and even more packed cocktail reception following the screening are any indication.  On hand during a Questions & Answers session following the film were four of the men involved both behind and before the camera, including film-maker Caranfil, actor Lloyd, and American producer Michael Fitzgerald. 

 

 

Above: Cast and Creative Talent behind Closer to the Moon (2013) at the Making Waves Film Festival, Friday, November 29, 2013. Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter I: The Film

 

Closer to the Moon, while not an intensely difficult-to-follow film, nevertheless tries to achieve much in terms of cinematic spectacle, ambiance, multi-character storylines, and history, each a bit hyperbolized or downplayed, or “tweaked,” in the way of movie magic.  In a nutshell, Caranfil’s is a period piece, set in the late 1950s in Bucharest, Romania. In the year post-World War II, anti-Nazism has all but died, and a group of five Jewish professionals, friends since childhood and united by a feeling that fate for them has never been and will never be secure, reunite in their thirties, and turn into revolutionaries, becoming what would later be known as the Ioanid Gang.  Of course, it is not just an easy manner of the quintet waking up one day and deciding to rashly rob Romania’s National Bank as a means of making a bold political statement in the anti-Communist country, although there’s certainly much of that ingrained in their decision.  (Later, this act became known as the “coup of the century” (“Making Waves”).) While Caranfil could have easily turned this based-upon-true-events film into a more historical-minded portrayal of the actual happenings, he is, as he later told the audience during the post-film Q&A, a “story-teller” and “film-maker” rather than a historian. 

 

Thus, we are treated, in Closer to the Moon, to a story told in interlinking “chapters” whose names flash across the screen to remind us that we are being told a story.  Some chapters are named after characters (like Lloyd’s Virgil or Mark Strong’s Max) or main events.  We are given a story not of an act but of the lives that converge upon that act—perhaps a drama in multiple mini-acts that lead to one.  What is more, we are given tiny glimpses at the lives potentially affected by the events, albeit on the outskirts, yet very much felt by audiences. 

 

What is astounding about Caranfil’s film is that he manages to strip it of any pretentious nostalgia.  While the film is relatively sensitive to human nature and personal desires, it is not particularly sentimental.  How easy it could have been to go the Stand By Me (1986)-esque route—one where a group of older friends flashback to their younger-selves, the intimate story of each unfolding on the screen, revealing each character to have his or her own story, expectations, and reputation.  Indeed, each of the five friends involved in the robbery—Vera Farmiga’s Alice (in real-life, Alice is based upon Monica Sevianu—all main figures’ names have been fictionalized), Strong’s aforementioned Max Rosenthal, Joe Armstrong’s Razvan, Christian McKay’s Yorgu, and Tim Plester’s Dumi—has his or her own life aside from the scandal of robbing what would today be the equivalent of a million dollars.  But these backstories are viewed in mere glimpses, peppering the film with a flavorful dash of realism that reminds us that these people are human beings with lives, loves, and reputations before they become the center of not just a criminal act but, also, a propaganda film.

 

Of course, these dashes of realism are necessary.  This is Caranfil’s first English-speaking film, and while the abundance of English-speaking actors and lack of true Romanians in the story left at least one woman participating in the Q&A following Friday night’s screening in a half-rage, a viewer must respect Caranfil’s sacrifice of authenticity in hopes that the story will reach a wide audience. 

 

The five nomenklatura—or Communist Party members of high-rank—are scholars, academics, and scientists (and sometimes excellent pugilists, as Armstrong’s Razvan seems forever destined to be the bloodiest member of the gang).  Each, in a way, feels trapped or uncertain of his or her future, futures given to each of them in what seems a surreal existence.  We see Max’s marriage to the striking Sonia (Monica Barladeanu), the sister of top-cop Damaceanu (Stuart McQuarrie) who is also Max’s boss, as nothing short of relentless tensions, physical abuse, and even her husband’s willingness to put her in prison after she slaps him rather loudly at a New Year’s Party.  On this very eve of 1959, Max goes running into the din and dimness of a shabby apartment, where his three aforementioned male friends and a couple of prostitutes cavort around rather lethargically and drunkenly, making predictions as to what the New Year will bring.  Max and his friends are particularly piqued by the race to see which country first puts a man into space (we are still a good ten years away from Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon), and it is this strange mix of wonderment—a dog has already been put into space—and uncertainly that seems to both grasp and weigh upon Max. 

 

It is this symbolic theme of reaching something monumental—getting “closer to the moon”—that also informs the film, as well as gives Caranfil’s piece its title.  Just as Max seems precariously near to getting too close to one of the New Year’s ladies-of-the-night, the apartment doors open with dramatic theatricality and in struts Farmiga’s equally-alluring-and-fearsome Alice, who has returned after ten years studying abroad.  It is clear that the four men in this long-standing friendship adore Alice, and in particular, Alice and Max have had a relationship (indeed, they have a twelve-year-old son together).  While Max soon pushes the inevitable divorce papers forward and strives to be a better man for Alice and their son, his “playfulness” with the young boy seems an eerie foreshadowing of what is to come.  His son enjoys drama and play-acting, even convincing Max to pick him up at school and pretend to “arrest” him.  Of course, because Dad is part of the Romanian police force, he can do it and get away with it.  Such scenes of limited domestic bliss and familiarity are short-lived, but nevertheless, this film’s meticulous blending of fantasy that becomes reality does not go unnoticed, and every small moment in Closer to the Moon seems microcosmic of a larger meaning.

 

Meanwhile, holding a grudge against Max for abandoning his sister, Damaceanu is ready to let Max out to pasture in a couple of months (once he has finished the reports he is working on, naturally), and Max—perhaps feeling burned, cynical, and jaded about the world—seems ready to be pushed towards recklessness even more than in the past.  We must understand that he and his friends are part of a generation that had no guarantees—as Jews in a Nazi-led world, to have any future post-War seems miraculous.  Yet, they are also part of a generation that feels as if all the future has brought them is a chance to settle—not happiness, true meaning, or the ability to attain total goals with ambition. 

 

One evening, as the five friends attempt to enjoy a rooftop birthday party for Dumi, their brief moment of nostalgia over their rabblerousing years as young revolutionaries—slightly catalyzed by Razvan’s wistful delight at being arrested many times in his past—turns to a “playful” banter of what would happen if the five friends did something that could serve as a slap in the face of anti-Communist Romania.  Sure, during the war, none of these five Jews felt as if they would have much of a future, but even now, there is a feeling of ennui in this still very-much-oppressed atmosphere.  Each feels cheated in some way, demoted, fired, or robbed of something greater owed to him or her.  What begins as a party-game of what would happen if the quintet robbed the National Bank, and did so under the guise of filming a movie, escalates, but is at first seen as an odd joke.  Yet, Max takes the idea seriously, and indeed, Alice seems almost far too invested in the scheme, imagined or not, as it is she who suggests the ruse of a film-set and robbing the guarded car that transports the money: after all, she reminds her four other friends, when they were children, they always did want to be actors.

 

Ironically, the five Jewish professionals-turned-crooks do get their chance at “stardom” before the camera, but it is at a hard, long cost.  As will be seen, they will be arrested within months after the crime, prosecuted, and then forced to recreate (albeit with lavish exaggeration) their heist for a propaganda film.  Caranfil uses costuming to starkly contrast the polished work and leisure wardrobes of the pre-criminal gang with their stained and splattered prison-outfits to truly underscore how dangerously and unfathomably low these people have fallen—and all for trying to make a point, rather than hurt anyone or steal for money alone.

 

At first, while the four other friends of what would later be dubbed (in real life) the Ioanid Gang stare at Max in disbelief, fearful of his suggestion that he will steal weapons and stash them before he is officially fired from the police bureau, this reaction is short-lived. With some rallying, and eerily-desperate words about an uncertain and meaningless future, Max is able to convince his friends to join him.

 

Quickly, the plan takes shape and, after a row over their son wanting to be involved in the crime, even the once-apprehensive Alice joins Max and their friends to take part in the shady-handlings.  More drama ensues when their young son, locked up at home, breaks free, spies on his parents, and films the heist, sending Alice and Max into yet another domestic violence scenario.  Yet, it is more heart-wrenching than volatile to see Alice—an educated, progressive-thinking woman who finally must think of someone else (her son) and tries to give him what she could never have (a life free of crime and hiding)—fail in her mission.  It is no wonder she seems, later, almost to relish her role as the crop-haired prisoner in filthy striped inmate attire.  She may feel it is her price to pay for failing her son.

 

Of course, there are some lighthearted moments of “thwarting” that follow the crime, such as overheard and misconstrued words by an old busybody that has police swarming to Yorgu’s attic to find his “buried treasure” of the weapons and a share of the money from the heist.  And it is not long before the four other members of the gang are rounded-up and arrested (only a couple of months, in real life).  But here is where the film really begins to take-off: instead of these five robbers simply facing punishment and being imprisoned for life or even killed swiftly, they are used as an example of what will happen to those who dare defy the national government.  Although the story of the bank heist itself has been swept under the carpet, probably to preserve the “good name” of the anti-Communist regime, officials such as Anton Lesser’s crusty insomniac Holban are content to beat the prisoners one day and then stuff them into wigs and costumes, cover their battle-wounds (earned through police brutality) with make-up, and tuck them into succulent feasts all for the sake of their propaganda movie. 

 

Indeed, at this point, Closer to the Moon almost becomes something of a farce, mocking crime, government, and the film-industry itself.  While it is uncertain what Caranfil’s true aim was through his hyperbolized drunken director Flaviu (played with perfectly natural and reckless aplomb by Allan Corduner) whose lack of sobriety and constant sleep means that Max and cameraman Virgil (more on Harry Lloyd’s role in all this later) become directors, the film is at least populated well-enough with a diversified number of figures to hold audience interest.  With the four male thieves in eye-liner and suits contrasting severely with their typically-sunken-eyed-and-starved look; and with Alice’s neatly-coiffed red wig, glam lipstick, and dainty clothes a clear departure from the rancid prisoner uniform she typically wears, the gang members seem to live the most incongruous life imaginable.  At night, they are in tatters and look to be standing on death’s door; in the daylight, they are the very living metaphors of film itself: all an illusion, a façade as gilded as a desperate convict whose death seems imminent but who is forced to parade through cobbled streets—once the site of the heist—in order to star in a film warning against the very actions he or she has committed. 

 

Above: One of the first images of Closer to the Moon (with Harry Lloyd and Vera Farmiga) ever released, way back in 2011.

Meanwhile, the convicts and their fellow cell-mates do their best to inform their loved ones that they are still alive and well, sending messages along via Virgil, who serves as a rather complicit, if not honorary, member of the gang. Indeed, he helps ensure that their legacy of law-breaking and recklessness continues.  Noting how close Virgil seems to be growing with his new “stars,” especially Alice, for whom the young filmmaker has some unspoken affection, the conspiring Holban has the boy pulled out of bed one evening and whisked to his house (ironically, the one Max and his wife used to occupy) in order to confront Virgil yet also to insist he keep helping the criminals in their attempts to contact their families.  In fact, the scheming official admits, he has another job for Virgil: get information as to the whereabouts of the sixth gang member, Alice’s son, who, it has recently been determined, had filmed the heist while it went-off.  Of course, Holban’s plan will only work if Alice grows comfortable enough with Virgil to tell him anything, and if Virgil feels obligated enough to Holban to tell him anything. 

 

Eventually, Alice does slip away from the film set and pursue her son; Virgil goes right after her in an aloof sort of way that soon turns to pity and affection.  After spending the night with Virgil, Alice and he return to the film set the next day, where the National Government, having heard of Alice’s “escape,” put an end to the film.  Meanwhile, Alice has left Virgil a letter with instructions—only to be opened after she is gone—and it is not long before the five prisoners are whisked back to prison, the only future left to await a swift execution. 

 

While the quintet of prisoners who seem always to know that their life of glamor on the film-set is only passing the time in a glorious Heaven before they reach the Hell of death and afterward are rounded up, Max will not remain silent.  Why not, he asks Damaceanu, why not send prisoners into space instead of animals?  At least human beings can take notes and report back to the scientists—and if criminal’s die in space, no one will care.  It is clear from Max’s words that he is not being foolishly desperate but is hopeful; in him seems always this dreamer, destined for the stars.  But the former brother-in-law’s response crashes upon the schemer’s ears rather rudely.  Absolutely not: space explorers are glorified and national heroes and, certainly, no gang like theirs that dares to make a mockery of the State of Romania will be destined for such greatness.  A viewer can taste the palpable irony and hypocrisy of the official’s words.  After all, if prisoners are not glorified in such a manner, why have the five thieves spent the past few weeks treated like pampered film stars?  Why have the police officials catered to their every whim, even trading in the food used during a luncheon for meals considered more pleasing to each of the criminal-actors?  Even if the propaganda film is to be used as a tool of the National Government, certainly, Alice, Max, Razvan, Yorgu, and Dumi have dined well more than have been beaten; have been respected and allowed to roam relatively freely around the film-set rather than be tethered together at every free moment.  In short, Closer to the Moon perhaps reveals a country of dreaming officials whose inability to see their own flaws in their system—short-sightedness, making mountains of molehills instead of focusing on more pressing matters (after all, the five criminals robbed a bank and kidnapped a couple of men who were later released—no one was injured or killed).  By extension, the film may just as well be pointing the accusatory finger at any institution or government that fails to live by its own standards and that makes symbols out of its people instead of actually fixing what is broken. 

 

Towards the end of the film, Virgil opens his letter and finds that she has tasked him with planning her son’s bar mitzvah, a celebration shown juxtaposed, image by image, with the prompt executions of the four men in the gang.  As for Alice: after it is found that she is pregnant, she is sentenced to life-imprisonment but, in 1964, was released through an amnesty for political crimes act.  In the early 1970s, she and her son and daughter immigrated to Israel, facts the film reveals through script at its finale.  Yet, the final words of the movie that could very much be called an ensemble picture are given to Alice, who talks not of the crime or the fate of her friends but, rather, of the space race.  In April of 1961, man makes it into space and the first human, Russian Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, completes an orbit of the earth in his spaceship.  Alice mentions Max, suggesting he was right to think it would be soon that a man is sent into space.  In these moments, the film comes full-circle, like a full-moon, exposing that undergirding Caranfil’s movie is the same, basic human desire of upward mobility—not in the sense of money or prestige but in personal fulfillment. 

 

Each character in the film, from the young Virgil who desires to find his passion to Alice’s attempts to be a better mother than she was her own person to Max whose personal grievances and unfortunate marriage seem to cause him nothing but unhappiness, strives for more, perhaps more than they are worth or the world is willing to give them.  Perhaps it is their background and ethnicity that prevents the gang members from ever rising “closer to the moon” of their goals.  Yet, it is human nature for everyone to aim at something, to aim for the moon because, at the very least, when they fall, if you will, they will fall among the stars.   

 

 Above: Harry Lloyd, deep in thought, at the world premiere of Closer to the Moon Q&A session. Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

 

Chapter II: Harry Lloyd’s Virgil

 

Lurking both in the shadows and sunlight of the main events of Closer to the Moon—the “film,” heist, and the propaganda piece that followed in its wake—is the young Virgil, played with the bright-eyed inquisitiveness and dose of objectivity Harry Lloyd manages to capture quite well.  Living with an elderly and kindly Jewish couple named Moritz (David de Keyser) and Sarah (Frances Cuka), Virgil is treated almost like a grandson.  Although it is never explained as to how he comes to board with this couple, it would appear that he is a young man, perhaps a just-recently-graduated student, looking to find himself in a Romania that seems elusive to him.  His life is pedestrian—work, eat hearty meals, read a bit before bed, and then sleep.  While Caranfil could have easily stripped his screenplay of Virgil’s backstory, though, Harry’s character adds something of a reprieve from the stark, brutal world of the convicts. 

 

The film’s first Chapter, in fact, is named after Virgil, and the first scene shows the coolly-dressed, stained-apron-wearing Harry Lloyd working at a canteen (an airy café) across the street from the National Bank and a maternity ward.  What looks like the general hubbub of any ordinary day is cut-short with the cries over a megaphone that there’s no need to panic and that a film is being shot on the street.  Thus, when gunfire goes off and bank truck guards are kidnapped, women holding babies watch from their maternity ward windows without flinching.  Virgil crams himself towards the front of the crowd and, although blinking and cringing a bit when he hears the gunfire, clearly relishes the action of the scene—everything from the sacks of money being tossed into the getaway van to the quintet in gas makes to the woman firing a machine gun into the sky. There are even signs that say a film shoot is in progress, adding a whiff of authenticity to the scene.  Scanning the crowd, Virgil inhales with delight everything he sees, allowing his eyes to linger tellingly on a cameraman (who is later revealed as Alice and Max’s knickers-wearing son) on a balcony, and even appears to get off work early, hanging up his apron soon after the film shoot is over and, strolling into the street, picking up one of the filming signs and carrying it home.  It hangs for a year on the back of his bedroom door, in fact, eerily marking the occasion of the country’s largest heist but, more so for the unknowing Virgil at this point, marking the day that the open-minded young man decides to get invested in film-making.

 

Later, at dinner, Virgil informs his kindly friends of the film-shoot and Moritz tells Virgil of movie stars from before the war, and how he used to see all the pictures; Jean Harlow seemed a particular favorite and in Moritz is something of an older Virgil and even Max—a dreamer whose ambitions and glory-days seem unlived.  After supper, Virgil sits in his bedroom, poring over Moritz’s old movie-star magazines, and then gets out of bed, curves his fingers around one eye while closing the other, and pretends to walk around with a movie-camera.  Although a rather childish moment, Harry Lloyd manages to assert his character as a young-ish man on the cusp of full maturity, still playful in his ways yet poised to begin seeing reality for what it is, in all its close-up glory. 

 

In a way, then, Virgil is the camera “eye” into the back-story of the gang members’ lives.  Serving as the common public who, at the time of the heist, had no idea that it wasn’t a film set and was really the actual deal, Virgil becomes just the Everyman whose existence is changed not by the reality of an action but by his interpretation of that action.  It is intriguing to wonder how many other lives, if any, the gang members may have altered due to the way they carried out their rebellious act.  After all, had they not concealed their reality behind the guise of film-making (here, Closer to the Moon reminds of 2012’s Argo, but only in the sense that film-making seems an easy way to conceal reality behind the alluring glitz connotative of Hollywood; in short, making pictures themselves offer a useful smokescreen), would Virgil have been particularly galvanized to quit being a waiter at the canteen and become a film-maker?  Would he have met Alice, earned her trust, and managed to carry out the good deed she thought was to be her final act for her son?

 

Perhaps Closer to the Moon offers more questions than answers, but, the next day, Virgil loafs around the nearby movie studios, where he unfortunately comes across the alcoholic Flaviu vomiting into the bushes.  Flaviu quickly spots the wide-eyed-and-disgusted Virgil (Harry Lloyd can play proper disgust with fluid realism), recruits him to run to the corner to buy vodka and conceal it in his Thermos, and to return there post-haste, ensuring that the careless director never lacks for the spirits.  The impressionable and hopeful young man, probably too disbelieving of his luck, runs off as quickly as imaginable.  One year later, we find Virgil’s initial foray into the film industry as an alcoholic-dispensing assistance has evolved into letting him be a cameraman’s assistance.  Peering into the lens and zooming in and out at a troupe of dancing girls could have been easily sexualized or profane, but for the innocent Virgil—who, at this point, reminds of young Colin Clark, as played by Eddie Redmayne in My Week with Marilyn (2011)—it is a fascinating study in movement, art, and the human body.  Just as the aforementioned older members of the gang seek meaning in their dreary post-war lives, Virgil seems desperate to find it now, although having been untouched by the war, presumably having been too young to recall anything.  A bit introverted and certainly more quiet than talkative in the film, Virgil seems most at home behind the camera, observing people through the distance of the zooming lens. 

 

Virgil’s next big break comes when he is recruited as cameraman for the propaganda piece that is to star the five gang members, and of course, the young man is so effectively thrilled by this promotion of sorts that he rushes about the meeting table and properly douses the director with coffee (probably Flaviu’s only objection is that it was not his ubiquitous vodka).  Harry plays the delightfully passionate-yet-inchoate Virgil flawlessly at this moment, whipping out a stained handkerchief from his pocket in order to dab at the coffee mess, sheepishly making things worse, and somehow managing to sneak out of the room without causing much distress to Holban, who probably already spies in this young impressionable and desperate man someone he can use. 

 

It is not long, too, before Virgil becomes fascinated by the gang, and he recognizes them to be the same quintet he had seen a year ago in what he had once thought to be a fake heist.  Standing in the courtroom and recording the verdicts (each member seems grisly delighted to be put to death, but then again, they have expected it for some time), Virgil is horrified to hear that the entire case has been blown out of proportion.  Whereas the prosecution and judge seem ready to call the bank heist a scene of madness and horror, with people running savage upon hearing gunshots and live in danger, Virgil knows all too well the reality of the situation: no one was harmed.  All was calm.  People so believed a film was being shot that not a soul was paranoid.  He recalls the women and babies at the maternity ward windows, and the feeling of elation watching the “action movie” being filmed.  Yet, when he tries to set things in order, Virgil gets his first real taste of how the real world acts: it will tell you to lie, cheat, and keep silent.  It will try to buy your loyalty, convince you that you saw nothing, and essentially keep you from doing anything but tell the truth.

 

Encouraged to keep silence about what he saw, Virgil continues to shoot the propaganda piece, but his invested interest in the gang members begins to focus on Alice, when he sees how quickly she is able to burst into tears and throw a tantrum on set.  Feeling sorry for her, he tries to comfort the teary-eyed convict-turned-actress, only to have her winking-ly tell him that she is merely throwing her weight around and “marking my territory.”  Thus, slowly yet surely, the young and impressionable young man who seems to, at first, wear his heart on his sleeve, begins to see the world as one giant act.  The world he puts on film—the world of beautiful moments, of brutal scenes, and the close-ups of human beings just being themselves—is really an allusion, no more true than those milieus in the cinema house pictures. 

 

Virgil further finds himself mixed-up in more pressing circumstances when Max stuffs the numbers of contacts into his pockets, asking him to call family members of various convicts and let them know their loved ones are okay.  Without much hesitation—and perhaps Virgil is our necessary portrait of the innocent (the type of person at core of every individual before he or she begins to see the world for what it truly is), desperate to make connections in any way—Virgil goes home and, under cover of night, calls the family members to relay the messages.  When Moritz finds the young man making clandestine phone calls—and does not believe for a minute Virgil’s story that he is calling his fiancée—Moritz is marvelously understanding.  A devout Jew, he is also open-minded, compassionate, and somewhat worldly.  He listens to American radio, static-and-all, because he can hear the music—like Johannes Brahms’—that would be considered illegal in anti-Communist Romania. Within Moritz’s character is a man who seems part nostalgic-survivor of two World Wars and part forward-thinking and forgiving member of the world who wants his young tenant to enjoy life.

 

Thus, when Virgil later brings Alice home during her aforementioned moment of “escape,” Moritz and his wife treat Alice to a fine dinner and do not seem to question that Virgil takes the older women to his room.  Downstairs, Moritz smiles knowingly and even turns up the music on his radio, as if to serenade the couple that charades as an engaged pair. 

 

Indeed, that evening, Alice makes the move on the unsuspecting, perhaps nervous, Virgil, and this young man loses his virginity to this alluring older woman who, despite all her confidence, moxy, and history, still worries about the way she smells.  In such small fragments, Caranfil reminds us that this is a human picture, not a historical one.  After making love, the young protagonist asks the bank robber for the story of the heist, which she tells him in an extended flashback, further solidifying Virgil as the character most in-line with the audience, as he allows us access to necessary back-story.  Virgil, then, is our necessary portrait of the naïveté; in many ways, Closer to the Moon is the coming-of-age story for him, an evolution that just happens to happen within the context of an infamous bank-heist.  In reality, though, human lives intertwine organically, oftentimes without preconceptions or bias, and such is the case in Caranfil’s movie.  Therefore, in Closer to the Moon, we find two main interconnected stories—one of a bank heist, the other of a young man’s life changing because of it and in an unexpected way—that inform and complement one another in a poetic, sometimes haunting way.

 

When Alice leaves the letter for Virgil asking him, with Moritz’s help, to plan her son’s bar mitzvah, it is a letter of confidence in this young man, an outsider.  Whereas she can no longer depend on her friends of old times, who are now in the same situation as is she, she has no other choice but to put faith in a young cameraman—a stranger, really—just as she chooses to trust in him earlier that day when she allows him to follow her to the house where her son is hidden away.

 

Virgil’s true allegiance to Alice and to human kindness is when Holban later threatens the young man and attempts to get him to reveal the address of Alice’s son, but the cameraman refuses.  He risks his job, governmental punishment, and personal reputation for a convict, but Virgil—with all his innocent and compassionate view of the world—recognizes in Alice a broken woman with only one last wish, and that is protection for her son.  Seeing the real Alice, the one with the boyish hair chopped in prison, the filthy refugee clothes, and tears brimming in her eyes, affects Virgil more than the demands of any government official.  True loyalties, the film suggests, come from the heart, not from the commands of others. 

 

In the end, Harry Lloyd plays Virgil with a truly endearing, slightly-whimsical fashion.  Using his eyes mostly, Harry’s Virgil is like an extension of his camera: probing the human spirit, looking for reactionary cues in others, testing emotions and learning to gauge them.  As aforementioned, the film is something like a coming-of-age narrative for Virgil, but not to the extent that Closer to the Moon can be called a true bildungsroman.  While the director could have certainly gone this way by beginning the film with younger versions of the five gang members, instead, he decides to focus on the aftermath of their adult decision, and thrust Virgil into the mix to showcase a younger generation learning about what the war does to people—of Alice’s age or Moritz’s—just as we, the audiences of Closer to the Moon, learn about this oft-neglected part of Romanian history as well.

 

Above: Harry Lloyd answers a questions about playing Virgil at the Q&A. 

Below: Harry listens as director Nae Caranfil talks about his creative process.  Images (c) C of Lloydalists.

  

 

Chapter III: The Q&A Session

 

After the film, Harry Lloyd, Nae Caranfil, and two of the film’s creators, including producer Michael Fitzgerald, were on hand to discuss this labor of love.  While some members of the audience felt that the story was aligned with Virgil and told from his perspective, Caranfil (very rightly) was quick to challenge this supposition.  Indeed, while the film begins with Virgil in close-up, and the narrative of the bank heist gets its feet wet on his stomping grounds in the canteen’s neighborhood, Closer to the Moon is something like a relay race among the actors who take part.  After Harry Lloyd’s Virgil gets his turn, the film very much gets taken-up by Vera Farmiga’s dazzling Alice, who somehow manages to remind of the brazen Barbara Stanwyck (maybe it’s the wig) and looks as comfortable playing the hardened-criminal as she does the tender mother or the wounded lover.  Mark Strong’s Max, too, has a formidable presence on the screen, his most alluring moments being when he surprises the audience by either throwing his wife into a pool after she smashes the television at a “friendly” dinner-party or looks only slightly crestfallen when his friends find the bank-heist idea (at first) just a joke.  The steeliness in his eyes—that dark, disturbing haunt of the devil—make clear why Strong has built up such a curriculum vitae as he has, oftentimes starring as “villains”; yet, here, he reminds of the abrasive and brash, yet truly sensitive, Tosker Cox, whom he portrayed brilliantly in 1996’s miniseries Our Friends in the North.  Sub-characters, too—like Anton Lesser’s Holban (it’s fascinating how such a diminutive-looking actor like Lesser can always manage to command attention and inspire fear in his audience) and Stuart McQuarrie’s Damaceanu—help flesh-out the sentiments of the picture.  These two in particular added a sinister layer of corruption to the film, exposing a flawed government that refuses to focus on its own problem and, instead, pries into others’.  Yet, to compensate for this seriousness that could have easily weighed-down the film, we have lighter figures, like Moritz, Flaviu, and Virgil of course, to remind us of the strength and beauty of a humanity—even a drunken one like Flaviu, who clearly takes the time to enjoy life, one inebriated moment at a time.

 

Harry was only asked one question specifically, asked to reflect upon the film, and he found it a delight to travel to Romania and plunge into this world that, historically, he knew very little about.  Unable to really speak much about the story Caranfil took and crafted into his own vision as almost a fantasy-meets-reality moment, Harry nevertheless quite obviously had a fine time being a part of this production. 

 

Another popular question among Friday night’s audience seemed to be why Caranfil did not properly infuse his film with elements that seem truly Romanian.  One cinema-goer said the picture actually reminded her more of an “Italian” film, although Romania’s film industry has certainly burgeoned over the years, considering the country boasts “spectacular locations—encompassing river deltas, dense forests, ancient cities and majestic mountains—and [has a] reputation for cost-effectiveness” (Holdsworth).  While Caranfil seemed a bit crestfallen to hear even the mere suggestion that his picture does not look “Romanian” enough, he stressed once more how he is a story-teller, not a documentary maker or a “historian,” and that the picture is true to his feelings, memories, and sentiments about growing up in Romania during that time.  In truth, Closer to the Moon reflects interiority, not external reality; it is a story, though rooted in true events, is built with the tools of connotation rather than denotation and it is very much the writer and film-maker’s playground. 

 

What is more, producer Michael Fitzgerald expressed with deep conviction his desire to find a distributor for Closer to the Moon, whether in the states or globally.  Calling himself “the only American in the room” (well, not quite!), Fitzgerald expressed how he hopes that showing Caranfil’s film at least at the Romanian Film Festival will offer a first-step to gaining a wider audience.  Indeed, the film truly deserves it.

 

 Above: Harry listens to film producer Michael Fitzgerald campaign for a distributor for Closer to the Moon. Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter IV: Chatting with Harry Lloyd

 

After the Q&A, Harry Lloyd was on-hand, mingling in the theatre and then at the after-show cocktail reception.  Two Lloydalists were on hand to ask him a few questions about Closer to the Moon and his upcoming work.  He admitted to us that when he first got the script for Caranfil’s film, he was not sure what it was all about, but loved the challenge of it.  He was game to simply show-up in Romania and “figure it out,” so to speak.  As he talked casually and engagingly, Harry was lit up with an infectious smile and seemed to really love the spontaneity of acting and how it allows him the luxury and freedom to really play in the moment.  He also mentioned that the original propaganda film, the shooting of which is showcased in the film, served as the main background material in terms of “research.”  Harry also acknowledged that other countries do not know much about this time in Romania, or this event and situation, and it is quite neat to draw something so unknown into the realm of familiarity, if even just a little bit, he said.

 

When asked about other upcoming films, or older work that has yet to be released on DVD or for U.S. Distribution, Harry did not know much about when such features as The Fear (2012) would be available or viewable in North America, but seemed delighted that people were at least watching his work, “however they can get it,” he laughed.  He also said that work on Big Significant Things (2014, according to IMDB.com) continues, and that this weekend while in the states, he hopes to do some additional work on that picture, filmed in Mississippi earlier this year.  Indeed, a look through Harry’s IMDB page HERE suggests that he has plenty of work to be viewed, or seen soon, but with little information as to when anyone can see it, unfortunately. 

 

All we can hope, though, is that distributors will pick-up these really stellar and immersive works of film, shorts, and television and make them more visible and readily-available for public consumption.  Lloydalists will tweet (@Lloydalists) any news, as it is revealed.

 

 Above: Harry's final response at the end of the Q&A session--that was all, folks! Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Chapter V: Concluding Thoughts

 

Truly insightful, engaging, and thought-provoking, Closer to the Moon is not an easy film to compartmentalize, but this lack of pigeon-holing makes Caranfil’s film refreshingly open to interpretation.  While it is not a perfect film (what is?), it is obvious the writer and director took great pains to craft his story, develop his characters, and perfect to the best of his abilities the ambiance of 1959 Romania.  Furthermore, it is a film that combines humor and drama in equal measures because that is life—emotions flow as readily (and sometimes because of) vodka from a bottle.  Generations of people coexist, from those of Alice’s child to Virgil’s to Max’s to Moritz’s generations, and each learns something from the others and tries to make sense of the legacy with which they have been tasked of carrying forward.  What is more, it is a film that, despite the lack of Romanian accents or true historical adequacy, remains realistic and truthful to human beings and who they are at core.  After all, it is human nature for all people to strive for something better, perhaps especially in times of discordance, whether it be war or post-war ennui or simply a pivotal moment of personal maturity. 

 

Among the film’s most memorable moments are Virgil’s opening view of the bank-heist “film shoot” itself, and how we later see this fictionalized world of what it thought to be a film transformed into the real-world when Alice tells Virgil her side of the story.  With the two perspectives finally in place to complement and inform one another, Caranfil reminds viewers how even what we see is suspect, cautions us that even our eyes and ears my deceive us, and challenges us to take a closer look at the way the world informs our decisions.  Also chillingly poetic is the execution scene of the four male gang-members.  Each is nearly pinned against a bullet-hold-riddled wooden pole, blindfolds provided but not put on them.  None of the men wear their blindfolds, instead, facing death boldly by staring it into the million probing eyes of the multiple-gun assembly before them.  What a sudden change from the probing eye of Virgil’s camera that had once studied them so closely; now, they are stared at from the barrels of death, bravely knowing it is coming because they “clearly knew they would be caught and executed” (Closer).  Caranfil chose to splice through this execution sequence shots of Virgil recording Alice and Max’s son’s bar mitzvah, with the young boys at that event executing their own orchestrated movement—of elaborate traditional Jewish dances.  It is certainly not lost on the audience that Caranfil is making a bold political suggestion here: that much of what goes on in our government or world does so behind-the-scenes.  Even the young birthday boy seems unaware of what is happening with his father.  The rest of the world, too, knows little or nothing as to what happened for this gang that seems to have been used as an example and destroyed for making a statement rather than hurting or killing anyone (indeed, even the money they stole seemed to be sitting around in hiding places; it was never about the money). 

 

To have Caranfil’s laborious work of love finally find a public audience is certainly a noteworthy moment, and Lloydalists is proud to have been there—as a fan of fine film and art, as well as independent artists, I really enjoyed being able to see this film unveiled for the first time, and having had the luxury of sitting in the middle of the front row at the Walter Reade Theater to do it.  Despite the darkness inherent of the film’s storyline, it is not a movie that dwells long on the horrors inside the polluted prison walls, nor does it dwell long on idyllic past memories.  Nothing is overtly glamorous unless it is Alice’s incongruous red wig, lipstick, and dainty outfit for the film—a sheer contrast to the grisly reality of how she and her four co-conspirators are used by the government, their noses essentially rubbed in their criminal act through the gauzy lens and transient bubbles of show-business.  Indeed, the Making Waves festival site calls Closer to the Moon a film with a “tragic aspect,” yet the story, “forever shrouded in mystery, gets an unexpectedly light treatment” (“Making Waves”). 

 

What I found most accessible about Closer to the Moon, however, was probably either a very latent theme or one the director did not intend.  The enchanting moment of the world beyond the canteen where films are being made and action is happening felt so markedly refreshing and believable.  Any viewer could see easily how Alice and Max’s young son and Virgil alike would want to be a part of that, too.  For the former, the war is not even a memory and, thus, things like causing trouble and getting arrested are all part of the cinemas—the world of gangster films and action.  Virgil, too, poised somewhere tentatively between the war and post-war worlds, is trapped between this same dazzle and the real world that has him making clandestine phone-calls and smuggling convicts into his bedroom.  Nothing, he seems to learn, lasts forever; time is short, transitory, and fleeting if you do not do enough to capture it—perhaps on film, or perhaps through a grand act of notoriety, for which Max aims.  Moritz’s wistful recollections seem to emphasize this belief in Virgil in time, too.  For Alice, legacy seems more bound within the lives of her children.  It should be no wonder, too, that Max’s power of suggestion about pulling of the “joke” of a heist actually comes to fruition rather easily in the film.  When so many desperate-for-meaning people are gathered together in such close quarters, having suffered the same injustices and discriminations, it is easy to sway the human heart, against what the head may be saying, to rash actions.  Such, in the end, every character, regardless of his or her desire, seems ready to achieve more, to do more, and be more—seeks to lasso the moon and if not pull it down entirely, draw it just a little closer and within reach. 

 

 

Appendices: News and Clarifications

 

For those fans of Harry Lloyd and his work, Closer to the Moon is probably the largest leading-role Harry has had on the big-screen, and certainly worthy of his third-billing after Vera Farmiga and Mark Strong.  As the theatre-goers made their way out of the room following the Q&A, and even during the cocktail reception, Harry was approached by various members of the crowd who wanted to shake his hand and tell him what a fine job he did and how he was the “heart and soul” of the film. 

 

While early reviews of Closer to the Moon from 2011 and 2012 made it seem as Harry’s character “falls in love with Farmiga’s character” (Ge, “First”), never does Caranfil’s film step quite directly into this territory of love and romance.  Instead, Lloyd’s character is more fascinated with Farmiga’s, and the two have a palpable chemistry that makes them feel more endeared to one another rather than in love.  After Alice spends the night with Virgil, she thanks him for having given her what is probably her last moment of true happiness in life, and Virgil—who has just given his virtue for this woman and seems altogether mystified by her—seems more like the obliging good-guy than any hopeless romantic.  Their act of love-making seems almost like a gift to one another—or a pact of commitment to one another—than anything overly intense or lasting.

 

* * *

 

The Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema festival series runs from November 29-December 3^rd at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, 165 W. 65th Street, New York, New York.

 

* * *

 

Finally, please continue to support the works of Harry Lloyd and Nae Caranfil’s film by tweeting about it, retweeting @Lloydalists’ posts, or hashtagging #CloserToTheMoon and #HarryLloyd.

 

 

Above: Harry prepares to field questions at the Closer to the Moon Q&A.  Have your own questions or reactions?  Please tweet them to us or let us know in the comments! Image (c) C of Lloydalists.

Works Cited & Consulted

Caranfil, Nae. Closer to the Moon (Official Site). Closertothemoon.com. 20 Nov. 2013. Web. <http://www.closertothemoon.com/>.

Closer to the Moon. 2011. The Internet Movie Database. IMDB.com. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017486/combined>.

“Closer to the Moon: Harry Lloyd Joins the Cast.” Film Releases. Film-releases.com. 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://www.film-releases.com/news/film-news/15411>.

Ge, Linda. “First Look: ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Harry Lloyd on the Set of ‘Closer to the Moon’ with Vera Farmiga.” Up & Comers. Upandcomers.net. 1 Nov. 2011. Web. <http://upandcomers.net/tag/nae-caranfil/>.

Ge, Linda. “‘Game of Thrones’ Star Harry Lloyd Gets ‘Closer to the Moon’ (and Vera Farmiga).” Up & Comers. Upandcomers.net. 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 1 Sept. 2011. <http://upandcomers.net/2011/08/31/game-of-thrones-star-harry-lloyd-gets-closer-to-the-moon-and-vera-farmiga/>.

Holdsworth, Nick. “Romania—Location and Costs Lure Production.” Variety. Variety.com. 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. <http://variety.com/2012/film/news/romania-location-costs-lure-productions-1118060889/>.

“Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema: Closer to the Moon.” Film Society Lincoln Center. Filmlinc.com. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/closer-to-the-moon>.

“New Romanian Cinema.” The New York Times. Nytimes.com. 23 Nov. 2013. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/11/27/movies/romanian-cinema.html>.

YellowBrix. “Nae Caranfil's Newest Film 'Closer to the Moon' to Open Making Waves Festival.” Hispanicbusiness.com. 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. <http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2013/11/15/nae_caranfil_s_newest_film_closer.htm>.

 

 

 

~ Researched, Written, & Posted by C; Feedback and Responses by K and Correspondent K. J..  C & K. J. attended the Making Waves premiere of Closer to the Moon on its opening night, Friday, November 29, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, New York City. ~