The Treasure

Costi loves reading the adventures of Robin Hood to his young son. One day, his neighbour Adrian offers him the chance to become a hero himself—albeit a more materially minded one—by helping him search for a treasure supposedly buried in his grandparents’ garden before the arrival of the communists. The young father agrees to rent a metal detector and join the quest. Accompanied by Cornel, whose sluggish indifference offers a comical counterpoint to his machine’s insistent beeping, the unlikely trio sets off across a plot of land steeped in history—where the 1848 revolution, a prelude to modern-day Romania, first took root—and begins digging at the foot of a centuries-old mulberry tree.

Originally conceived as a documentary, and filmed in the very same spot with two of the protagonists who now play themselves in this fictional adaptation, The Treasure paints a wry portrait of post-communist Romania in the throes of the 2010s crisis. Precisely crafted, with delightfully offbeat, almost slapstick dialogue, Porumboiu turns this treasure hunt into a biting fable, in which ordinary men attempt to reclaim a piece of buried wealth from the monstrous grip of the capitalist transition.

Emmanuel Chicon

The Whistlers, 2019
Infinite Football, 2018
The Treasure, 2015
The Second Game, 2014
When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, 2013
Police, Adjective, 2009
12:08 East of Bucharest, 2006
Liviu’s Dream, 2004
A Trip to the City, 2003
Telephone Number Temporarily Suspended, 2002
Gone with the Wine, 2002
Love … Story, 2001
Graffiti, 2000