Pororoca

One sunny day at the park, five-year-old Maria and her brother Ilie are running around the busy playground. Dad Tudor drinks coffee and chats to the other parents. Everyone is keeping an eye out and yet, suddenly, the unthinkable happens: Maria is gone. Helpers are called in and do their utmost, but that evening Tudor and his wife Cristina are at home, devastated: their daughter has really disappeared.

Director Popescu shows how disruptive grief and pain are by following Tudor for over two hours as the latter attempts to arrive at an answer. Is Cristina’s charming ex-colleague somehow involved? And who is that childless oddball at the park? Watching him disintegrate as blind desperation takes hold is soul-destroying. Popescu records all this with quiet, chilling distance using prize-winning actors and sure-footed camerawork that can be suddenly, intensely close at times.