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After having spent years away in Italy working at a fastfood place,
trained physician Vlad (Catalin Paraschiv) returns to his hometown, a
little Romanian village, and stumbles upon a corpse, the dead body of a
farmer everybody claims has died in an accident even though he has visible
stranglemarks on his neck. Vlad figures everybody must have been bribed
and is determined to find out the truth, especially since someone has
apparently signed the death certificate in his name. However, the more
he investigates, the more bizarre the whole case gets: Vlad at first
suspects Constantin Tirescu (Constantin Barbulescu) to be behind
everything - he is a rich landgrabber who had his eyes set on the dead
man's land for quite some time, and he has a past as the darling of the
Communist party under Ceaucescu, so that would make sense. Thing is, the
villagers have lynched him and his wife not long ago (but before the death
of the farmer). The other problem is though that he has come back to life,
because he is a strigoi (~ vampire), and nobody has taken the care of
burying him properly. And even as a strigoi, he hasn't given up his
scheming and landgrabbing ways ... Now all of this sounds bad enough,
but it gets from bad to worse when Vlad finds out nobody is really
interested in properly solving the case or even getting Constantin Tirescu
the vampire killed for real - after all, in death he bribes them just like
he did when he was alive. Instead, other people involved in the case die,
including Vlad's best friend the local cop, and at one point Vlad himself
is even almost buried alive. On top of that, he finds out he might be part
strigoi himself, just like his grandpa is. In the end, Vlad figures the
only way to put an end to the whole affair is to dig up Constantin Tirescu
(who has to spend the days in his tomb), tear out his heart and burn it,
whether the villagers like it or not ... You might not have
guessed it from my synopsis, but Strigoi is a black comedy, and as
such it's an expert blend of motives from Romanian folklore, the country's
present
socio-political situation and its Communist past. And Faye Jackson is a
capable enough director to not bring across all of this in an
in-your-face-way but tell the film's story in a subtle fashion that puts
more emphasis on atmosphere than on action and hides its message behind
allegoric storytelling. Add to this a great cast, and you are left with a
great film. Recommended.
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