Many years ago, I had a short phase of fascination with Max Blecher, the author of the novel that this movie is loosely based on. This phase began as it most likely did for quite a few others, through Mihail Sebastian’s journal, in an inadvertent gesture of immense kindness – Blecher’s mentioning a minor remark that, to me, proved the gateway to a unique mind, an incandescent writer and a tragic destiny.
It’s been more than a decade since I read Inimi cicatrizate (Scarred Hearts), so I’m not really in a position to compare the book with the movie. Radu Jude has admittedly been liberal in his adaptation for the big screen, particularly as far as the story’s tone and rhythm are concerned.
We’re still met with Emanuel’s sorry tale (Lucian Teodor Rus), a young Jewish man-boy who is admitted to a rehabilitation facility following a diagnosis of musculoskeletal tuberculosis, also known as Pott disease. For a youngster at the height of his emotional and intellectual vibrancy, the subsequent immobilization and deterioration are soul crushing experiences. It’s all semi-autobiographical in the novel and fully biographical in Blecher’s sanatorium journal, which was published posthumously, as the author died at just 28 years of age.
The intersection between reality and fiction can be a lot while reading the novel, something that Jude deals with by starting off the movie as a hopeful projection of what life on the mend could feel like. He captures the spirit of the golden period of the thirties, with its joyous intellectuality and not-yet-classified-opining on the nationalistic movements that swept through Europe. After Emanuel’s admission, he makes new friends, romances the likes of Isa (Ilinca Hărnuţ) and Solange (Ivana Mladenovici), while dealing with the painful interventions overseen by dr. Ceafalan (Şerban Pavlu). If anything, the first part of Scarred Hearts plays almost like a summer camp story, with boozing, partying, poetry-making and love-making on the order of the day. That is, until reality leaves less and less room for hope.
The scenes are fractured by excerpts from the book, sometimes one-liners, sometimes whole paragraphs, usually against the grain of what we’re seeing. I think this is where Jude struggles a bit in getting the story to coalesce, as its episodic nature proves elliptical. The tonal shifts don’t work effectively and some of the scenes and performances come across as overly theatrical, if not borderline farcical. At almost two and a half hours, it’s a lot to take in.
It’s part of the reason why I failed to fully resonate and engage with the story, in spite of being shaken to my existential core while reading the book. Of course, that in itself sets a high standard, even more so when the references are obscured by time.
That being said, it’s difficult not to feel taken in by Jude’s many visual plays, the vistas and the creative framing, which come closer to express the essence of this tragic tale than the dialogue and characters. We are talking about a living, breathing film and the visual compositions in Scarred Hearts ultimately find their way past all the dead tissue to make some lasting memory. 7
tributary stu 