Through the Ashes of the Empire

1976

1h 41min

A war story. survivors. refugees. few essential meetings. and great actors. a film inspired from Zaharia Stancu short story. about pain, search of sense in misty times, about roots of evil and price of survive, about a country as shadow and ruins of a empire. all in dark nuances, touching images. a movie like a ballad. heavy, strange, profound, harsh, cruel. with few drops of feelings as steps of rotten ladder. looks, silhouettes, way to ambiguous home. a thief and a young man. across Balkans. among ash of a fragile territory. the impressive aspect - silence. and gestures. the woman, the train. the escape. the bath. and the death of Diplomat. all - fragments of an old way to discover reality. all - words of a new world.