We’ve been watching the TIFF film festival in Cluj for at least six years now. There have been good films, and bad films, every year. But even when you had a bad film, you could trust a couple of funny adverts, right?
Not this time. The most interesting thing is seeing how Nadia Comăneci aged in her video where she says “merit” or “you’re worth it.” We are reminded that she came from a small town in Romania by another ad, but we don’t learn how she trained or any of that.
If you’ve seen old adverts, you know the “you’re worth it” or “I’m worth it” is an old line. It was delivered better in the old days. I don’t blame the athlete, it was probably terrible directing.
It seems like the ads were secretly designed by communists, with the intent of showing us how much better things were fifty years ago, when Romanians could win the Olympics because there was a better training system (and perhaps better education system and more).
But remember the years before? The ads for Mol were funny. The ads against contraband were funny. It was entertaining to watch the ads.
I have another suspicion on why. Perhaps the films are so boring, they are afraid that people will vote for the ads instead of a film.
Voting for films is kind of dumb. I mean, what if I see a terrible film that I think merits only one star, but then an even worse one the next day? I can’t change my vote to two stars, now can I.
(In a previous year, I had the opposite problem. I had given a film five stars, and then the next day saw an even better one. That sci-fi film was awesome, I wish I had told the director. Especially after seeing things this year, I wish I had given more personal praise to filmmakers who actually knew what they were doing.)
Anyway, the festival is not over yet. Maybe we will see an interesting film, or at least an interesting commercial, before the festival is over. Maybe. We hope. (If I didn’t pre-buy a pack of tickets, I would give up now. But at least if a film is very boring, I can follow the example of some brave souls and walk out.)
I am not ready to scroll on my phone the whole time, no matter how many other people do it, because I find that so distracting. Please stop it. If you hate a film, please just leave the cinema. We won’t judge you for that. We will judge you for scrolling on your phone in the cinema, the light pollution is irritating. You can do that on the bus or in a cafe or something.