Romeo et Kristina

“This was my shack; over there, were my brothers. No one bothered us…” When the film begins, the slum where the young Roma couple, Romeo and Kristina, once lived has disappeared. Day after day, they wander round Marseille, where the police stop their small group from settling permanently under a bridge. Soon, the chronicle of their daily life takes a new direction: they return to their Romanian families even though, as we learnt off-screen at the beginning of the film, “you can’t build your life in Romania”. How can you continue to love when you don’t have your own place, when families are both nurturing and predatory, or at least hostile? Nicolas Hans Martin’s familiarity with the Romani language, his affection for the young couple and the time he takes to shoot all lend this film an unprecedented emotional breadth, without courting pity. “Dare to say you don’t want what you love most in the world!”, Romeo screams over the telephone. As Kristina’s desire to have a child becomes clearer, his sometimes childish behaviour begins to pose a problem. Although Romeo and Kristina shows the different lifestyles in the two countries – both precarious (food but no roof in France, the opposite in Romania) – the film can also be seen as a universal love story, complex and obviously intractable. (Charlotte Garson)