The Moromete Family

Ilie Moromete (Victor Rebengiuc) is a Romanian peasant who runs his household through talk, holding forth with a dry, teasing patience while his wife Catrina (Luminița Gheorghiu) and his children listen. Stere Gulea, adapting Marin Preda's novel, lets the marriages, taxes, army service and feuds unfold side by side. What the film holds onto is how much of a family's life is made of arguments, favors and debts that never quite settle.