A mother tries to murder her son for his pocket change. Family reunions, am I right?
An ex-convict struggles to survive by brute force alone in a turn-of-the-century slum in Bucharest. Codine is the thug who served 10 years for murdering a friend. He returns home to his miserly mother, whose penny-pinching ways infuriate her son. A young boy looks up to Codine, and through the man's eyes he sees the economic and social injustices from an adult perspective. When Codine kills another man who violated his trust, his mother becomes more unhinged and paranoid. Thinking her son will steal her hoarded money, she plots to kill her only son. The impressionable child watches in horror and amazement at the cruel machinations of the adult work that surrounds him.
Cinematography
Bucharest slums shot like fever dream tableaux
Acting
Anastasia's miser mother: terrifying, grotesque, unforgettable
Director
Henri Colpi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Henri Colpi won Best Screenplay at Cannes 1963, beating Fellini's 8½ — controversial then, forgotten now.
Banned in Romania until 1989; Ceaușescu's regime hated its unflinching portrait of pre-communist misery.
RO
