The Legacy has just opened in Romanian cinemas – Dorian Boguța’s directorial debut. The prolific actor, closely associated with the New Romanian Cinema has worked on a few short films in the past, and his feature-length debut draws upon a painful personal experience, along with policier and New Wave influences, to tell the story of the disappearance of Anton, a gifted musician who had been mired in a variety of personal problems, most of them surrounding his sister, Ana (played by Irina Rădulescu). We sat down with the director and the main actress to discuss the structure of the film and its influences, and about how Boguță’s vast experience in acting influenced his work methods, among other topics.

My first question is about the genesis of the project. Dorian, you’ve had a few short films so far, all of which revolved around genre: a somewhat darker area, with horror and thriller accents. Where did The Legacy project start, based on your previous experience?

Dorian Boguță: It did not start after the short films, but long before them, long before, when I was not even in Romania, but in Chisinau. There was a drama in my family… a man from the family disappeared, that’s a fact. Not in the sense that he went to the other world, but that he disappeared in this world and nobody knew anything about him. My sister (it was her son) was living a drama, and logically we were suffering along with her. It was also the fact that the country was in the transition period after the Soviet Union – at that time no state authority functioned properly. You would go to the police and they were just not interested in your problems. So all you could do was hope that he would randomly appear from somewhere. And we waited for six years, but … in those six years you exist, you live, you eat, you go to work, and that suffering is lingering in you. And at one point I thought, “Hey, what if I make a movie about this story?” Because the story has something pro-filmic in it. Well, disappearance itself is filmic, somehow. And I was thinking that maybe with this occasion I will relieve myself of my pain and my sister’s as well.

I linked the subject to my suffering because at the moment when I finished college I was sure that I am the best actor that ever walked this earth. And three years I realized that no, I am not. And at that moment I fell into a depression, which made me understand that – “well, this is all that you know how to do so do it, but enjoy yourself while you’re at it“. But I also wanted to leave something behind, so then I made a combination of this desire and my sister’s drama. The film, at this moment, has nothing to do with the drama of that time, only about 5% – the only thing is that we are dealing with a disappearance. But, emotionally and spiritually, it’s very close – 95%. In time, I got older, I had different experiences – quite logically so since the years pass by, there is no other way to it – I talked to some and others, I wanted to make a movie and I was interested in the police movie.

This is the area where I feel very good, me, as a spectator, not as a director. (Oh dear, I called myself a director!) I like these movies. I’m a big fan of Jacques Audiard – A Prophet, Rust, and Bone – all the films he made. He has this area of police film he is interested in that he blends with elements of poetry, of auteurist filmmaking – and I like these things. The music is well used, there are hidden messages, a puzzle is built. Yesterday, after the premiere, I had a very cool moment – in front of the cinema, five people were arguing because each one of them had their own opinion about the ending of the film. They placed bets and when I came to explain to them the ending, one of them shook hands with me and told me that he had won. But that’s what I wanted, and so I told them that I was happy: that the movie gave birth to half an hour of discussions.

Regarding genre film, it is notable that The Legacy is placed at an intersection between policier, neo-noir movies and the values (aesthetically, at least) of the New Romanian Cinema. How did you work on unifying these two types of perspectives, especially since the NCR (at least at first) rejected genre films, or approached them just to subvert them? Here it is quite congruent.

Dorian Boguță: Because I am like that. I always combine things – I am the Romanian realist, but at the same time I have a certain kind of being, even in the way I dress. Not that I’m very interested in it, but I take that into account somewhere. There is a certain vision, but at the same time, I like Romanian realism, which has already been ultra well-known and appreciated globally for the past 15 years. This is probably where it starts to break, I think – you have to try because in cinema you have to have the courage to try some new things. I didn’t have the courage I think, I just did some things that have been already done by others long ago, but I combined them in a Romanian film. And in Romanian films, it is usually either this or that. Like how I tried for the first time to make a Romanian horror film – Cazimir – because it had not been done before, and I liked this idea that I should be the one to open a new door in Romania, even if anyone else could open it, but I don’t know why they didn’t.

This is the case with The Legacy – the Romanian film industry is beginning to take on the outline of an industry where there are also genre films, auteur films, and audience movies (look at how it is now with Miami Bici sweeping the box office). I mean, we don’t have that money yet, we don’t have so many cinemas, but I was interested în having the viewer see the movie and not thinking ” oh look, what a strong director”, or “man, what cool actors”, but rather in them being there and watching a story, the characters. This could be done with some very good actors, who understood the story well, who were able to transmit it, and I, as a director, together with the team, facilitate the process by which this story reaches the spectator, through all kinds of tools but without emphasizing them. For example, through a soundtrack that isn’t used from the very beginning, with a kind of traveling shot that is extremely fine, which can be noticed only at the second viewing of the movie – all the sequences in the flash-back are made with this technique.

Regarding the decision to use these traveling shots, which are becoming more and more popular in contemporary arthouse cinema, why have you repeatedly chosen to use these devices?

Dorian Boguță: I don’t know how to explain it – în a concrete and punctual sense. I wanted to emphasize some things without saying “look at this”. That is, to arrive, without realizing it, to look at something. If I come very slowly towards an object, I see nothing else, but I didn’t realize that I was approaching it. Between us, it’s a manipulation of the spectator, but this is about cinematography itself and the tools that you use. It’s a manipulation, but I like that – because it’s an honest one. Because the actor is always in front of the camera and is very honest in those moments.

I remember talking to Barbu Bălășoiu, the DOP, and the concept was sometimes done on the spot. Some sequences, some shots – for example the one in which Irina is stripped by Marin Grigore – the construction, the conception of the shot was made on the same day it was filmed because I saw it differently before, but once I got on the set I took a new decision. There is one more thing – I did not have enough money to construct more frames. The whole film – apart from the final sequence, at the police, and one with Mădălina Ghenea, also shot in the precinct – is made up of one single shot-type sequence. I didn’t have money to play with the framing, but … well, I thought, so I am going to limit myself since I have no money for 40 days of filming, and then I’ll use as much as possible from what I already have: how would it be if I would shoot the sequence in one single shot? Could I include everything I wanted to? With the help of Barbu, I think that I succeeded în doing it, because when it comes to editing I am interested in the cut being like a blink, not to feel it at all. Which is quite complicated. And then I said – well, I’m going to shoot the sequences as a single shot, I still needed to have a dynamic. With the help of the compositions and the choreography – I remember that I drove the actors crazy by making them use exact positions – I succeeded. The first sequence was the most complicated one, and it was done the first day, and so it had to be reshot.

I wanted to ask how your acting career – which is a prolific one – informs your work as a director and, in particular, your relationship with the actors on the set. Irina, could you also offer some insights from your perspective?

Dorian Boguță: For me, it is very simple because as an actor, I know what I would like to hear from the director. So when I’m a director, I go to the actor and try to give him exactly what I would want to hear. It’s simple: the actor has to be put în a sort of cage, that’s what I realized. Because if you give him complete freedom, the actor doesn’t know where to go and so he gets scared. And if you give him a cage, but you give him complete freedom inside the cage, he will automatically know what to do within these confines. I explain very well to him what is supposed to happen and I make sure that he also understands very well what I want, and so I tell him: this is the cage, this is its limit, you can do whatever you want in there but you cannot get out of it. At that moment, he knows he can’t go out, so he won’t be eaten by the wolf, but by being free inside, there is some kind of relaxation that he arrives at. The actor only works well when he’s relaxed because if he’s tense, he doesn’t transmit that energy, that thought …

It doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Cristi Puiu, for example, who is not an actor although he played in Aurora … all his actors are extraordinary, even if he keeps them on a very short leash. To each his or her own, but this is just how to know to work, that’s what it is – it’s what I would like to get from a director and so that’s what I offer. But I think that the most important thing is for the actor to have faith in me. That is the first thing that I said to my actors: if want to go with me, we have to trust each other. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not… if you trust me, we will be able to walk together, right leg out. Neither you nor I have time to convince ourselves to trust each other. Just come with me, it’s possible that we can get to a point – and if we don’t get there, it’s not the end of the world. If you trust me, you will make my work much easier. And I was lucky that they had a lot of confidence in me.

Irina Rădulescu: What more could I add to what Dorian said? Because I sometimes think in the terms he uses! But … it is very important for the actor to feel that the director knows what he wants (and, at least in principle, he does). He is like a head of state – if you feel that he is all set în his position, the people will go after him because they feel that they are safe! Well, I trusted in Dorian because, first of all, he trusted me, it was mutual. And the fact that Dorian is an actor can be felt in his care for the actors – because I know more about the theater, în there, the actor is at one point… therețs a saying for this, everything falls onto their head. And you feel absolutely no concern, some point onwards, if the tension is very strong – you feel that everything matters except you. For this project, I did not feel this at all, there was always a concern for the actors – and I was really surprised at this, I said: “look at this, I cannot believe this …”

Dorian Boguță: But the story can reach its viewers only through the actors. If the actors are not relaxed enough and are just thinking about what they have to do, the story will not go out well. After all, the most important thing is the story!

Irina, how was the experience of acting in this movie? As far as I understand, this is your first role in a movie, after a long experience in theater, but also in a few series. How is film different from the theater, beyond the things that you just mentioned?

Irina Rădulescu: I don’t think I thought it in that way, that „until now I have done theater, so from now on I’ll make movies, comma”. I was open to a new experience, but, in the end, any ordinary day in this life is a new experience, if you look at it with openness. I didn’t judge things by categories. I tried to understand this experience so that I could go on and that was it. I haven’t theorized it much. Let’s say the first day was more difficult because I had to set my limits. But then, although it should have been getting more and more difficult because the situations in the script itself were getting more complicated, I found that with each passing day I was getting better and better with everything that was happening. It all came naturally.

Dorian Boguță: I think the actor, when he or she realizes that the director has confidence in him, only asks him to be extremely careful about what he has to do, and while he’s in the situation, he does not realize if it is difficult or easy. He doesn’t realize at the moment because he has something to do, he’s in it, you know? Even if you have or don’t have the experience if you know exactly what is happening and you like what you do, a while after it’s over you realize – “Whoa, it’s done? But wait a bit, how was it like?” I realized this by thinking of some of my acting projects. So this is what happens if you’re really in touch with actors when you’re making a film. In this project I put my whole soul – probably because it was the first one – and I think that’s what got us so connected.

Given that this a film that takes place on two separate time frames, in what order the scenes were filmed? Did the actors have the whole script available from the very beginning?

Dorian Boguță: Before we started shooting, I talked a lot with the actors, so that they could figure out exactly what kind of stew they were in, for them to know who they are, how to think … for example, I sent a link to Marin Grigore to a concert by Nina Simone, where she simply loses her focus, she goes elsewhere and starts speaking to the audience. And I said, look, this is the character, he is in this direction, this is the kind of man he is. He looked at the concert and then followed up with some documentaries about her and said, “Man, incredible, can I get my inspiration from this?” Preparation is very important. It’s like the radio – you just look for the station until you catch it, and then you simply stay on the frequency. From there, you can do whatever you want, because you’re on the right wave. As for the order of filming, in low-budget filmmaking it’s… Hitchcock said at one point that “if you have no money, look for locations.” In the sense that it’s inspiring to see places. And that’s what I did – for Anton’s house, I looked for a sumptuous apartment to convey something specific about his character, I searched for a long time. Then a specific kind of concert hall – such as the Radio Hall, but I would not have been interested, for example, in the Palace Hall. Unfortunately, I did not have enough money to fill it up with the orchestra, the scene would have been more rewarding. So, I shot in the order of locations that we had. But as far as sequence plans are concerned, we did it chronologically, at least in the logic of the locations and because the adjustments were only related to the lights. Having little money to work with limits you.

Irina, what was it like working with your character, considering that he is idiosyncratic, that he sometimes seems to lie, or that he hides details at least? A character who feels great pain, but who seems to perform it, in a way, just to hide.

Irina Rădulescu: From the interactions I had with the audience, I found that there is this perception that she is a liar. She lies only in the outside world, but she does not lie according to her conscience. That’s the paradox of the character – to her, everything is very justified, but in the end, we can even arrive at the notions of the ancient theater, to the tragic guilt. When you try to modify on destiny, destiny strikes you back, and from here the only place you can come to is a tragedy. (And in the end, after all, here we have a tragedy too.) But she, in her mind, isnțt a liar – she just has to explain to others around her something they cannot understand and mentally digest. She knows, however, that, as a rational person, people around her will find it difficult to digest this story, but she understands this in her consciousness, so she doesn’t lie. I think Dorian felt a common chord between me and the character, and on the first day he said to me, “Please don’t play anything.” And I think that this common chord between me and her is that, beyond a calm surface, the calm waters are always deep.

Dorian Boguță: Or that deep waters are full of devils.

Irina Radulescu: Or that! (laughs) I searched for myself in those depths.

Regarding the financial limitations – both of the independent film scene and the local film industry – how do you think these aspects influenced the film and the work process?

Dorian Boguță: Well, not quite independent, because I had money from CNC – not much, but they gave me some. The plus-side of this situation was that I was extremely limited about certain things, and so then I had to struggle with those limits. And sometimes, when you’re limited, that struggle can help. Because if they said to me, “look, look, take all the money in the world and do what you want with it“, maybe at that moment I would have suffocated. But so, it was “you have it from here to up to here, this is as much as we can give you, get along with it.” In the future I will even consider this – well, not to put some budgetary limits, I want a big one – but I will build some mental areas that I will not leave so that I will have to deal with what I have. That is the moment when you start to think, to improvise, to be creative and resourceful. And only then you can see. If you have everything you want, it gets boring – you take out all the tricks and you make a huge salad out of it. For example, when I think of the best films made by the Russians – after all, those are my origins – they are all from the censorship period because they had to deal with it, but they had so much to say that they were suffocating, so then they were trying to encode some messages. When you start thinking like this, ideas start coming to you, and that gives the movie sort of a glow, without you even realizing it. Nikita Mikhalkov, for example – when he was making films and was limited by censorship, he made brilliant films. When they gave him all the budget in this world, he made the worst movies ever. I think he’s the worst director alive right now, while also being one of the best in the past. And this is the proof, he is the best example of what a lack of limits can do.

Irina Radulescu: Freedom is said to cost. Maybe that’s its price.

Flavia Dima

Film critic & journalist. Collaborates with local and international outlets, programs a short film festival - BIEFF, does occasional moderating gigs and is working on a PhD thesis about home movies. At Films in Frame, she writes the monthly editorial - The State of Cinema and is the magazine's main festival reporter.