The Reenactment (), also known as Reconstruction, is a 1968 black-and-white film by Romanian director Lucian Pintilie. It is based on a novel by Horia Pătrașcu, which in turn reflects real-life events witnessed by the author. Produced under the communist regime, which it indirectly criticizes, it is a tragicomedy about incompetence, indifference and misuse of power. Structured as a film within a film and largely shot as a mockumentary, The Reenactment stars George Constantin as a prosecutor who keeps in custody two minor delinquents, Vuică and Nicu, played respectively by George Mihăiță and Vladimir Găitan. He makes them reenact their drunken brawl at a restaurant, and is helped in this effort by the militiaman Dumitrescu (played by Ernest Maftei) and a film crew. Two bystanders watch upon the youngsters' degradation at the hands of the prosecutor. They are The Miss (Domnișoara in the original), played by Ileana Popovici, who is amused by the succession of events, and the pedantic alcoholic Paveliu (Emil Botta).
The recipient of much critical acclaim and considered in retrospect one of the most notable contributions to Romanian cinema, The Reenactment was released at a time when the communist regime was in its liberalization phase, coinciding with the first decade of rule by Nicolae Ceaușescu. Nevertheless, its political implications irritated communist officials, and the censorship apparatus decided to withdraw the film from cinemas only months after its premiere. In 1969, Pintilie was pressured to work outside Romania, and focused mainly on stage production for the following twenty years of his career. The Reenactment was again screened at home in 1990, one year after the Romanian Revolution toppled communism.
Production and plot
Both Horia Pătraşcu's novel and the screenplay (co-authored by Pătraşcu and Pintilie) are closely based on real-life events. The incident was witnessed by Pătraşcu during the early 1960s, and took place in his native town of Caransebeş, shortly before a celebration of August 23 (Communist Romania's national holiday, commemorating the 1944 coup). The militiamen involved had detained two youths with no prior criminal record, accusing them of having been drunk and disorderly, and had decided to make them reenact the scene in order to educate the public about the perils of alcohol. In a 1999 interview, Pătrașcu acknowledges that, as a university student and part-time activist at a local culture house, he was a member of the original crew.
Like in the film, the militiamen's decision seems to have outweighed the punishment proscribed for such offences: they made the youths film the same scene over and over, and, in the process, exposed them to public humiliation. Pătrașcu, who credits German writer Erich Maria Remarque and his All Quiet on the Western Front with having inspired his narrative, states: "At the actual, filmed reenactment I for one had a terrible shock. They were children, they were just children. The police made them do what they had previously done. But that was a beach, a pool, there were girlies wearing bathing suits, some of them were connected with those girlies, and the [militiamen] were making them do what they had done when they were drunk, which was absurd, which made me shiver." In both story and film, Vuică dies after his friend, pressured by the authorities into making the reenactment look more authentic, hits him over the head with a stone.
There was a significant gap between the story's publishing and the start of production. Filmmaker Mircea Săucan recalls repeatedly urging Pătraşcu to turn his text into a screenplay. Before Pintilie took up the project, Horia Pătrașcu says, he was approached by two other directors. The first was Radu Gabrea, who abandoned it once he decided to resettle in West Germany; the second was Liviu Ciulei, who disagreed with the writer over the plot's tragic outcome, and eventually ended talks. Also according to Pătraşcu, Pintilie was enthusiastic about making the film, and anxiously approached the author just as he was taking his final exams. George Mihăiţă, Vladimir Găitan and Ileana Popovici were debuting actors in their early twenties. As Mihăiţă recalls, he and Găitan were cast after a brief interview with Pintilie. Poet and actor Emil Botta was fifty-seven at the time, while George Constantin was thirty-five and Ernest Maftei forty-eight. Despite the marked age difference, Mihăiță remembers, the communication on the set was smooth and the atmosphere playful.