The house in ‘Acasa, my house’ is a wild, swampy expanse on the outskirts of Bucharest, a deserted reservoir inhabited mainly by birds, fish and insects. At the beginning of this documentary, directed by Radu Ciorniciuc, the only human inhabitants are Gica Enache, his wife, Niculina, and their nine children. Surrounded by chickens, pigs, pigeons and dogs, they live in proud, sometimes combative defiance of ‘civilization’, a word Gica utters with contempt.
The children run through the reeds, catch fish with their bare hands, wrestle with swans and do homework. However, the scene is not entirely pastoral, and Gica is not exactly Henry David Thoreau. He is a moody patriarch, partly anarchist and partly autocrat, protecting his family with the power of the state with his own sometimes tyrannical authority. When confronted by social workers, the police and other officials, he is not always diplomatic. At one point, he threatens to set himself on fire. “These are my children, and I can kill them if I want to,” is perhaps not the best thing to say to child welfare officers.
“Acasa” was filmed over four years and tells the intricate, bitterly sweet story of Gica’s defeat. When the Romanian government designates the area as a protected nature park – allegedly the largest in a major European city – the Enaches are forced. They break out of their house, an expansive structure of blankets and plastic sheets wrapped around a temporary wooden frame, and move into an apartment. The children, who were provided with haircuts, shoes and new clothes, regularly went to school for the first time. The eldest son, Vali, finds a girlfriend and claims some independence from his father.
Does it represent progress or disaster? For Gica, the answer is clear: everything he values has been taken away. But while Ciorniciuc views him with clear sympathy and respect, ‘Acasa’ is not an uncritical or romantic tale of the lost paradise. You can see the park administrators, government ministers and municipal bureaucrats through Gica’s eyes – as smiling, condescending agents of a force that disturbs its peace and threatens its identity. You can also see him from their perspective as a man subjecting his family to dangerous and unhygienic conditions that need to be protected from his own impulses.
The film is not static. It’s dialectical – it constructs his story as an argument between two opposing positions, which are not fully embraced. There is nobility to Niculina and Gica because they are trying to resist the power of a state that is convinced of its own benevolence. And the actions of the state are not entirely unreasonable. It is not as simple as applying the side of individualism towards the government, or being in favor of parks, schools and a decent social order.
It’s all pretty abstract, but ‘Acasa’ is full of ideas because it contains so much life. It is intimate and analytical, a sensitive portrait of real people undergoing enormous change and a meditation on what the change can mean. It touches on something about the human condition, a basic conflict between the desire for freedom and the tendency to organize – ultimately an argument about the meaning of a home.
Acasa, my house
Not rated. In Romanian, with captions. Duration: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters and at Kino Marquee. Consult the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines before watching movies in theaters.