Americans movies vs.

Romanian movies
About weddings

The movie industry of romantic comedy is huge! There are at least 2-3 good
wedding movies each year (movies that really break the box office). Even if there
doesn’t exist the genre called “wedding comedy” or “wedding romantic comedy”, I am
sure there will be something like this soon. Or this is what I understand from the
increased number of wedding movies, some of them really well done. Let’s take for
example movies like: “12 dresses”, “Made of honor”, “American Pie – American
Wedding”, “Wedding date”, and “Our family wedding”. They are always presenting a
similar situations, it starts with a plot between a boy and a girl, they either are friends and
don’t release they have more powerful feeling than that (Made of honor), they either start
with the couple deciding to have a wedding.. and then the whole craziness of the
situation, bringing the parents together, putting all their wishes into the mix (American
Pie, Our Family Wedding). The end is always predictable and the same, the boy gets the
girl after some sort of test. There is always some kind of challenge that the hero (she or
him) has to pass in order for the happy ending to have the right to kick in. They copied
this from the ancient fairy tale, when the guy had to fight the evil (dragon, or Balaur as
it’s know in the Romanian mythology) and succeed so he may be seen as fit to have
HER.

But even if they are so predictable, we still love them, because they help us
escape, they make us laugh imagining how our parents will be in their shoes in a couple
of years, or imagining how us (the brides) will go totally insane just before the wedding,
rethinking all our life 100 times over. Whatever we see in them, we do it for the same
reason, we need hope, and we need to see the good in people, some sort of perfection.
Especially here in the Balkans, life is hard enough as it is, so we need from time to time
some sort of cure, we need something to escape our gray movies about communism. And
that’s why we love seeking refuge in the American Dreamy wedding. It’s the perfect way
to spend 2 hours relaxing after a very hard day at the office.
 For my presentation I chose 2 Romanian movies, quit recent, that have caught the
eye of the international critiques but most important, they are movies that were successful
even in their country, Romania (this happens rarely). So, let’s start with the first – called
“Nunta Mută” (Silent Wedding) having Horațiu Mălăele as the director. He is a very
famous actor in Romania. This is a movie that can be considered exactly the antithesis of
the typical American romantic comedy involving a wedding. We can see from the first
seconds that this is not a romantic comedy, especially when the reporters find only those
ruins. The weird start then, when entering the village they see the phantom of a dead
woman (we will find out her story only towards the half of the film, when they find her
murdered in the forest) and they are greeted by what used to be the town prostitute,
amazingly she managed to escape the Russian wrath. But while having a very funny
discussion with her (Marinela is her name), they see a lot of grannies around the ruins,
carrying some candles and all dressed in black. But also we find out that, the guy that the
television crew calls “Mayor” was a kid in 1953, and he is the one that start telling them
the true story of how the little village disappeared in just on night, the story about a
normal wedding that turned into their worst nightmare. Why? Because the communism
was in power, so they decided your whole life. You were just a simple puppet, but
sometimes even simple puppets start thinking like Pinocchio and try to break free. This is
what they did, they totally ignored a direct and strict order, and this sentenced them to a
life of suffering.

But let me tell you the kernel of the story. A boy and a girl love each other, and
their parents decide that it’s time for them to make the grad step of getting married since
they were already acting very intimately and having sex with every occasion that they
had. And then we see how they prepare everything for a traditional Romanian wedding
for that time, and how exactly when they got from the church to the house for the actual
party, they whole comedy turns into a tragedy. The gray color of communism falls down
on then when a Russian officer comes to announce them that their “father” Stalin is dead
and that everybody is supposed to mourn him for 7 days, and that during this time every
joyful manifestation is totally forbidden, so they are told to postpone the wedding.

And normal people would have stopped everything then, but not us! We have
always had a seed of revolution inside. So they decide to have the wedding anyhow, but
they moved it all inside, after they managed to soundproof the house the best they could.
And this is when again.. comedy strikes in for a short period, because it’s interesting to
see how they try to keep the whole wedding on silent, like it’s a mobile phone that you
can turn on and off. And because of this they have to eat using only their hands, they
drink from glasses covered in rags, they mime discussions, nice words for the bride and
groom are transmitted via “cordless phone” (развален телефон) from one end of the
table to the other. Then the band is trying to look like they are actually singing, the bride
and groom they to act like they are dancing on real music. And this goes on for a while,
until a point when the girl’s father just sits up, being fed up with this situation after seeing
the expression of disappointment oh his daughter’s face, and starts yelling “Nuntă bă!”
meaning ( Wedding, dudes! / Сватба бе!). But unfortunately that is just the beginning
of the end, because after a short period a tank enters the house breaking one of the walls,
the father’s bride is killed by a bullet, other are just beaten and all men are put in a car
and taken away by the Russian army for disobedience. And that is how the little village
came to its end.

But let me show you now very distinct difference between Romania and America.
For example all our weddings take place in the church. I am not sure if it’s a law, but
our priest would never agree to have a wedding American style, on the patio, or in some
garden, or on the seaside. Or at least for sure no Orthodox priest, the Catholics may
indulge this, the doctrine not being so strict. And this is something that you find in many
American movies; almost all of them have a special romantic place, and not the boring
church. (American Wedding for example and also “Our family Wedding”). But as you
may see in “Nunta in Basarabia” the wedding takes place in a church. Too bad that in
“Nunta Muta” the cut that part out.

And something else typically American is the fact that you have to stay even in
Church on one of the side, according to who you know, the groom or the bride. The Bride
is always on the groom’s left side, so all her guest stay on the left and his guest on the
right. It it said that it’s an old custom to have the bride of the left, being easy to protect
her this way (in medieval times, when the groom also had a sword). Again in our movies
you shall never see such things, there doesn’t exist a groom’s side and bride’s side in the
church. People just enter an occupy their places accordingly to the order they enter (in
catholic churches) because in Orthodox churches there are just a few seats and those are
designated for the elderly. So, again the only criteria for “seating chart” in the church is
the order you enter, you just go closer towards the newly weds so other people would
also fit in the church.

Some habits that will never miss from the American versions are “The Batchelor
party” and “The Bridal Shower”. They are like an unwritten law. You can find this in
every movie (American Wedding) and the cliché of this is that in 4 out of 5 movies
having this something bad is going to happen. I don’t mean cheating but still somebody is
going to do something stupid. In our movies this is something weird, because it’s more of
an America-imported tradition. I am referring to the “let’s go to a strip club or hire a
stripper thing” that we see in almost every movie. For us it used to be just boys getting
together and having too much to drink. So that is why I think that the scene with the
dancer from “Nunta in Basarabia” is a bit forced, it doesn’t look natural. But it seems that
we have adopted this. In “Nunta Muta” the main character doesn’t have a Batchelor
party, or at least we are given this impression. It seems that for the director this was not
important.

Another thing we can see portrayed very well in American movies is the idea of
having at least 3 Made of Honor and 3 Best men. Or at least this is what we are shown in
every movie when they walk down the altar. And the made of honor will always have a
special dress, which most of the time is hideous! All 3 of them should wear the same
identical dress and be happy about it. Well if we see things this way I believe that in our
wedding you have more freedom, at least everybody gets to chose the exact outfit they
are going to wear, and if they desire to change for the party, then even better. For us the
only important thing is that everybody from the wedding has a little plastic white flower
attached to his chest. That is like the sign of belonging to the wedding. All the guests
have smaller flowers and the close relative have big ones to stand out in the crowd. This
is a very important tradition. You can observe the white big flowers in “Nunta Muta”
whereas the director from “Nunta in Basarabia” decided to change the ritual a bit, maybe
because it was Chisinau this time, and instead of plastic white flowers, they used real
flowers attached to their chest. But the authentic ones are the in NM.
 A wedding somehow always ends up very related with money. I mean more than
it should be in reality. Let’s take the example of the movie realized by “Abc family”
which was launched last year “My fake fiancé” a movie where 2 people with nothing in
common at the beginning, decide top get married just for the stuff and for the money. She
lost all her stuff and he has big debts to some bad people. So.. What better way to make
money fast than a wedding? Of course that in the end they fall in love and everything is
ok, but this subject was very well exploited. Especially because this is also present in our
movie “Nunta in Basarabia” where they also want to please the girl’s parents but they
also have a hidden agenda, because they need money to buy an apartment, so they also
found a very good way of doing this fast and easy especially because they were not rich
at all. Vlad doesn’t seem so happy about this arrangement at certain times, and that is
why we can see him leaving the wedding party many times when things get annoying and
thought. But even so, in the end he is happy that they managed to let it all pass and that
everything ended ok, and they got the money they needed. A big part of the money was
actually “given” to them in one way or another by Valeriu, a guy madly in love with
Vica.

But we also find a certain idea about money in the movie called “The Wedding
Date” where Kat, has to hire a male escort so she won’t show up there alone, to her
sister’s wedding. She also wants to get back at her old boyfriend so this is another reason
for her to feel this need to impress. So she decides in the end to buy and escort, and this is
how she finds Nick. So the wedding is again sort of a deal, different form the other
movies, but still there. Of course that in the end, they fall in love and it all ends well, he
returns the money, and quits his job for her. Typical Hollywood ending, but isn’t this
what we all want?

Wedding Crashers is also something that seems to be popular in movies. Maybe

not in “Wedding movies” but in comedies, you often see this. There was even a movie
about this a couple of years back, staring big actors like Owen Wilson and Vince
Vaughn. In our case we can consider the Russians as the “wedding crashes” in silent
wedding, because at first they tried to stop the weeding from happening, and when they
discovered the wedding was still on, they decided to finish this once and for all, and took
all the man away. So they were more than simple crashers, they destroyed a pure thing,
they just transformed one of the most beautiful days and celebrations into a horror movie,
or at least that is how I felt at the end.. that it was too much, that they have gone too far,
but then I remembered that they were communist, and they were mindless robots
following orders.

And also we don’t go so crazy about the “seating chart” like you can see in some
movies, especially in “Our family wedding” where they portray this as being the most
important thing in organizing a wedding. For us this may exist, or may not, it’s not
something that we usually do, except if there are some people that can’t stand each other
present at the wedding, then maybe we would try to seat the ourselves in far away places
one from each other. As you can see in “Silent Wedding” the place is not important,
they just sit down, they drink, eat, try to talk among themselves, they don’t even care
where they are and who is in their presence. And the same goes for “Wedding in
Basarabia” where we get an idea of the sitting chart only towards the end, when they
give the bride the gifts and we see that the Romanian speaking people and seated at
different tables from the Russian speaking population. But even so, there is not much
information about this. The cold war exists in the room, and you can totally see this in
some key moments when patriots like Gioni stand up and make a scene that just creates
more trouble instead of easing the situation.

A very important custom in Romanian Wedding tradition is “Stealing the

bride”. Some guys from the wedding take advantage of the groom’s divided attention
and steal the bride close to midnight. It is said that usually the groom should have eyes
just for her and should never let her out of his sight, so that is how this tradition started.
But because it’s a wedding the groom has to check on everybody, so somebody will
surely steal the bride, and the funny thing is that people barely notice this until somebody
comes up on the stage to announce this and to announce the ransom that the groom has to
pay to get her back. Usually it’s always related ti drinks, like a bottle of Jack Daniels, Jim
Bean, a 6 pack of beer, a bottle of wine. And sometimes they also ask for a symbolic
amount of money (it can be 1 leva) just so that the deal would be considered official. You
can see something like this in “Nunta in Basarabia” when the bride is taken away and
then Vlad just invites the “kidnapers” to the wedding in exchange for the bride, and tells
them to relax that they don’t need to offer him money as a gift, they should just come,
because they will be his special guests. So he again resolved the problem just half way,
because the tradition is to offer them something nice to drink, usually something
expensive like whisky.

Something that is always present in real Romanian wedding are “Lăutarii” (the
English dictionary names them fiddlers – but I stil don’t feel this translation is 100%
describing these singers). They are singing some Romanian folk* (in Romania Folk
music is totally different from the Bulgarian Folk music – chalga. ) and special wedding
songs. They are present from the beginning until the end. The tradition has is that usually
the groom starts from his parents house and them goes to his brides parents house to pick
her up and go to church together. This is of course for people staying in the same city.
But usually the groom has to welcome his guest into a different house, and then, with
them and with the “fiddlers” he must go and take his bride. When they are entering the
bride’s house they are singing songs like “Ia-ți mireasă ziua bună”, a song that is telling
the bride to say goodbye to her family, her house, everything she had there, because now
there is a new life and a new house awaiting her.

You can see the importance of the fiddlers, you can see them in Nuntă Mută when
they are going towards the yard to start the celebration, and then later during the silent
wedding. And also, after the bride’s father shouts and gives them the signal, they are the
ones that revive the wedding from the frozen state it was in.

Rehersal dinner and Rehersal Wedding – For a Romanian this sounds insane. The
wedding itself cost a lot of money, to rehearse it, would just be crazy and money lost. So
whenever we see this in a movie we are always amused, especially because it’s in almost
every movie “27 dresses”, “Made of honor”, “American wedding”. They all have it, and
again, there is this cliché that something will happen and that somebody will suffer for a
brief period of time. Maybe this is another reason why we don’t have such a tradition; it
just offers you more time to find things that can go wrong. As you can see in both
movies, nothing is rehearsed; a lot of surprises come along the way, sometimes ending
bad and sometimes good. You can never know what will happen, you can just hope and if
you can keep your mouth shut (Vlad sometimes speaks to much in “Nunta in Basarabia”
but his uncle gets them into trouble every time he opens his mouth.).
 The car with the message “Just married” on it and with tons a cans tied to the
bumper is again an American invention. It’s the kind of thing that can’t work here.
Mostly because we make noise before the actual party, we honk the horn between picking
up the groom, the bride, church and the party hall. That’s when we make the noise,
because the party ends after 4-5 am, so they barely are able to drive.

In our weddings a lot of food is mandatory. This is among the most important
things in Romania, to have a lot of good food, that the guest can brag about later. You
can see this especially in “Nunta Muta” when everybody is concerned not about the
wedding and the newly weds, but their problem is that in those 7 days the food will go
bad and it wouldn’t be possible to use it, so they would have to buy new one. That was
the main reason for their decision to keep the wedding party anyway. So in every normal
Romanian wedding there are tons of foods. Food is sometimes important even in
American movies, but not so much. Anytime they show you something food related
about a wedding, they show you how the 2 of them or somebody goes cake-tasting or
wine tasting. You can rarely see somebody who is going to try an actual menu (only in 27
dresses there is a scene suggesting this).

So even if we are so far away, there are still some common elements in our
wedding movies and of course, in our real life weddings.

*Folk music – we mostly call the Cântece de munte (meaning – Mountain songs)
because they are the kind of easy but with meaningful lyrics that you would sing with
your friends around the camp fire when going camping somewhere in the mountains. But
some of them can also be used at weddings. One of the most popular songs of this type is
Amintire cu Haiduci (A memory with outlaws) interpreted by the singer called Valeriu
Sterian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVRbCQc8I5E
Comparison of the Wedding in American
Movies and Romanian Movies
(Nuntă mută and Nuntă în Basarabia)

Ungureanu –Maier Dianora

Romania