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MORE GYPSIES

Today's Roman Duris film was Tony Gatlif's

Gadjo dilo / The Crazy Stranger (1997)

A young frenchman goes to Romania to find a certain gypsy singer who was a favorite of his father. He is also, as it turns out, an ethnographer and records gypsy music. He is taken in by an old grandad who teaches him Romani and they become close friends. He lives with the gypsies in their camp for a few months and falls in love with a young singer who has been outside and knows the gypsy ropes. Some more side stories. The old man's son is a thug who gets in trouble and the locals come to wreck the camp.

This is Duris' third film. He is used mostly as a sounding board (learning the language, recording songs) for Gatlif to show the gypsy life and use a lot of the real people in small scenarios. It is an almost documentary but not quite.

Duris has the magic even in this early outing. The film is one of three Gatlif gypsy films that was released here. The other two have sort of disappeared.

We saw another Gatlif film the other day where Duris goes off on a road trip to Algeria to find his roots.

Duris does very well with this stuff as he is spontaneous and able to deal with the improvised business of the moment with the non-actors involved.

I liked this movie but it will not be to everyone's taste. I am fascinated with gypsies and probably would like to be one. So any crazy shit they do is OK with me.

I will give the film a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films