‘Three Kilometers to the End of the World’ Review: A Portrait of a Small Romanian Village, Made Smaller Still by Prejudice
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic A hot, strong summer wind is the overriding soundtrack to “Three Kilometers to the End of the World” — the kind of dry, whirring weather that swallows conversations held even a short distance away, and carries stray, light objects far from where they meant to land.
For 17-year-old Adi, however, it’s not loud enough to keep his secrets safe, nor heavy enough to lift and float him away from the home in which he feels increasingly imprisoned.
A rural village in thrall to the Romanian Orthodox Church proves as hostile an environment as you’d expect for a closeted gay teen in writer-director Emanuel Pârvu’s claustrophobic study of personal and institutional prejudice closing in on a community misfit: If the breeze would just die down for a second, you might hear Adi’s inner clock tensely counting down his slim shot at freedom.
An accomplished actor now making his third feature behind the camera, Pârvu is well-versed in the formal and thematic hallmarks of Romanian New Wave cinema, having previously been directed by the likes of Cristian Mungiu (“Graduation”), Cãlin Peter Netzer (“Familiar”) and Bogdan George Apetri (“Miracle”). “Three Kilometers to the End of the World” follows faithfully in that national tradition — there’s no mistaking the cinematic heritage of its patient long takes and preference for static, body-slicing camera placement, nor its preoccupation with the corrupt inner workings of local authorities.
Read more on variety.com
