End of Second Day: Exchange (Schimb Valutar) Review

The Second Day of the Film Festival has now passed. It was a day full of events, including the Working Lunch with Romanian actors and directors, the films "Hooked", "The Other Irene" and "Exchange", the documentary "Constantin and Elena" and the short "Waves".

This post takes a closer look at "Exchange" (Schimb Valutar), a film by established director Nicolae Margineanu. "Exchange" takes place in Romania's troubled 1990s. Its plot is centred around Emil, an unemployed worker that wishes to emigrate with his family to Australia. Emil's life takes a dramatic turn when, as he tries to exchange his family's fortune for a dollar equivalent, he decides to shun the official exchange houses to approach a dealer on the street. The deal proves disastrous as the man cons him and leaves him absolutely penniless. Ashamed of his situation, Emil cannot bring himself to tell his family the truth and instead wanders the streets homeless, despondent and revengeful. When eventually he discovers his conman, the anger and fury reach a break point, and Emil kills the him. As the situation spirals deeper and deeper, Emil finds himself imitating more and more of the scammer's lifestyle. Eventually, hunted by police, he discovers the means of escaping to his dreamland of Australia. Yet, by the time he boards the plane, it is no longer clear if Emil or the scammer's ghost are the ones embarking.

The film reads as an objective chronicle of the breakdown of a man's personality. Emil's persona quickly disintegrates in the absence of true remorse and self-questioning. In the very end, we realise that the exchange is not really about the ill-fated street deal, but about the internal process whereby Emil exchanges his self for the scammer's. The ambiguous ending - commented in the Q&A session afterwards - was apparently shot two months after the actual film. It serves to emphasise the extent of Emil's depersonalisation and loss of identity.