The Distance Between Me and Me

Nov 28 2018 N/A 1h 29m
Documentary

Poet, musician, intellectual, and committed communist Nina Cassian wrestled for decades with the central contradiction of her life: how to reconcile her artistic ideals with the strict censorship imposed by Romania’s Communist Party — a tension that put her at odds with the totalitarian Ceau?escu regime and eventually led to her exile. Interweaving archival footage with firsthand interviews, this thought-provoking documentary illuminates the complex relationships between art, politics, and personal truths.

Plot

They succeeded in making a dissident out of a poet that was so central to communist propaganda, that she was present in all literature manuals. A proletcultist artist, intelligent and with plenty of affairs, that was made to look just a feminist that opposed real socialism and criticized Ceausescu. She was a icon of the time and an activist for the communist cause. She had a very privileged status, thats why she was allowed to criticize the rulers. The old lady that she became shows no remorse, nor regret, she has nothing interesting to say about the intellectual and social atmosphere of the time. She portrays herself as an idealist. She did not leave the country until 1985. Her American partner is a nobody, from intellectual perspective and her life in NY was a failure, still she did not come back, probably because she could have been subjected to a lot of critics, for her support and for being a beneficiary of the communist regime. What I learned is that old age is not as we should expect an age of wisdom, nor one of introspection and doubt over what mistakes and what pathways one should have taken, nothing but a decaying body with a superficial mindset.

Written by

Dana Bunescu, Mona Nicoara, Ada Solomon

Directed by

Dana Bunescu, Mona Nicoara

Production Countries

Romania, United States of America

Languages

Româna, English

Awards

1 win & 2 nominations

Scores
# of Votes
135
Average Rating
8 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA