NEW York is beginning to look like Bucharest on the Hudson.
Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater is hosting a festival of old and new films from Romania, the Two Boots Pioneer in the East Village is packing ’em in with Cristian Mungiu’s Romanian abortion shocker “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and the Film Forum is projecting the New York debut of the Romanian road flick “Stuff and Dough.”
The director of the latter is Cristi Puiu, whose heartwrenching “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” was a Cannes prizewinner and won my nod as the best film of 2006.
But on to Puiu’s “Stuff and Dough,” his feature debut, filmed in 2002.
A young man, Ovidiu (Alexandru Papadopol), who lives with his parents in Romania’s second-
largest city, Constanta, is hired by a shady businessman to deliver a large canvas bag, supposedly medicine, to an address in Bucharest, the capital.
Ovidiu’s parents run a small business from the back of their house, selling beer, water, Coke and snacks. Ovidiu wants to open his own stall someday, so he agrees to make the delivery as a way of raising cash.
Against the wishes of his sleazy boss, Ovidiu takes along his best buddy, Vali (Dragos Bucur), and his buddy’s sulky girlfriend, Bety (Ioana Flora).
Using a shaky hand-held camera that moves fluently from character to character, Puiu records the four-hour trip, which proves to be more dangerous than anyone had expected.
The three young people find themselves menanced by thugs in a red car. Who are they, and what are their connections to the gangster who hired Ovidiu?
The three young people don’t know, and Puiu isn’t telling viewers. A roadblock by on-the-take cops adds to the suspense of this low-budget triumph.
P.S.: “Mr Lazarescu” unreels at 7:20 p.m. Sunday at the Walter Reade.
Stuff and Dough
Ro-mania hits NYC.
In Romanian, with English subtitles. Running time: 91 minutes. Not rated (violence). At Film Forum, Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue.