Michael the Brave [Romania 1970]

Mihai Viteazul
Director: S. Nicolaescu
Cinematographer: G. Cornea

This film tells the story of the eponymous 16th century national hero, raised to a mythical status during the rise of nationalism in the 19th century as the first prince to have united the territory of Romania. Like War and Peace, it is a long and epic film with several large scale battle scenes; but this is a much more superficial film with a basic patriotic message.

Like all historical pieces it is a selective retelling of events. The protagonist seems to believe in the idea of a united Romania for its own sake; he never actually explains why he believes in this, and such romantic nationalism seems an anachronism. He is presented as a rather caricatured mediaeval hero: strong, courageous, trustworthy, forgiving. And of course the idea of a Romanian nation benefits from this association.

There are two particularly interesting aspects of his portrayal. The first is the relationship of Romania to the rest of Europe. Michael's attempts to forge a Romanian nation-state require him to free Romania from occupation by the Ottomans and the Habsburgs, which involves a great deal of intrigue on all sides, as well as by the Vatican. All foreign and Church leaders are portrayed as conniving, self-serving, duplicitous people who wish to subjugate Romania. Only Michael is portrayed as honest and good, if at first overly trusting of the others, and his task is to fight his way through their various manoeuvres so that Romania, though small and poor, can be free and independent. He says emphatically at one point, 'Europe! I don't care what Europe thinks'.

What is of course interesting about this emphasis is that it seems to parallel the international situation of Romania at the time the film was made. That is, having broken with the USSR and enjoying rather mixed relations with the West and others, but not isolated like Albania, Romania's position was one of standing alone in a world surrounded by great powers that sought to manipulate it. The idea of a heroic Romanian nationalism that learns its lessons about compromising with foreign powers and in the end must go it alone undoubtedly resonated at least with the kind of patriotism that would have been promoted in the 1970s, and possibly also with actual sentiments. Indeed, this kind of feeling is not contrary to the turn one year later toward Juche-inspired ideas.

A second interesting aspect is the centrality of a single strong leader figure as representative of the Romanian nation, leading it against all opposition from the outside. Thus, much like Alexander Nevsky, one could be forgiven for reading into this an attempt to draw direct parallels between a great historical leader and a current one, in this case Ceauşescu. Interestingly, there are several battle shots that parallel that film, and there is even an uncanny moment toward the end of the film in which Michael says something like 'Those who come to our land with good intentions will be welcomed, but those who come with weapons in hand will be defeated'--essentially the same line spoken near the end of Alexander Nevsky. Of course, that film was clearly designed to rally patriotic sentiment on the eve of the fascist invasion; unlike that film, this one was not responding to any military threat, though perhaps it was responding to the detachment of Romania from the Warsaw Pact. So although this film is far from being an element of a personality cult as, for example, The Unforgettable Year 1919, it can easily be read as making some small contribution.

Stylistically speaking, the cinematography unfortunately mostly mirrors the simplicity of the plot. That is to say, much of it is really Hollywood-style action or romance shots, with a few possible nods to Eisenstein in the battle scenes. Of course, it is competently pulled off--it is just rather stereotyped cinematography. This goes along with a plot and characters that are not really explored in depth. Much of the result of this is that it succeeds, like a Hollywood movie, in titillating and keeping interest, and perhaps the point of this is to use the titillation as a vehicle for national pride and historical exposition.

Certainly this film is of interest for what it says about Romanian national identity, particularly as interpreted in 1970. It is not a particularly multidimensional film, either in style or content. But it does perhaps indirectly convey something interesting.