Cult Cinema: Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven (1975) - Reviewed

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Images Courtesy of Mosfilm
Moldovan-Soviet born director Emil Loteanu was already a master craftsman of the mythic Soviet romantic drama film having directed several including but not limited to Red Meadows and Lautarii by the time he arrived at his grandiose 1975 Sovscope 70mm tragicomedy Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven.  A stirring, sumptuous melodrama loosely based on the early short stories Makar Chudra and Old Izergil by Maxim Gorky, the film Tabor Goes to the Sky or Queen of the Gypsies written for the screen and directed by Loteanu treads a fine line between fantastical and sometimes bawdy Earthy musical and a bittersweet love affair.  While playful and highly musical, there’s a sharp realistic edge to this period piece that sets itself apart from some of the more carefree escapisms of Rodgers & Hammerstein widescreen song and dance movies. 

 
Set in the dawn of 20th Century Austria-Hungary in a Roma camp on the Tisza river, Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven zeroes in on two deathly proud lovers, horse thief Loiko (Grigore Grigoriu) and Roma gypsy girl Rada (Svetlana Toma), who become smitten upon their first meeting but prefer their independence to the baggage of marital affairs.  Whisked into the gypsy camp accompanying Bucha (Borislav Brondukov) and headed by old Nur (Mikhail Shishkov), the arrival of Loiko into the camp comes with its own setbacks after the thief steals a white horse and engenders a retaliatory raid of the camp by local authorities.  Loiko is arrested and sentenced to death but not before escaping and reuniting with the lovely Rada whom he longs to wed.  With an already tense and tumultuous atmosphere surrounding the doomed couple, needless to say things take a serious turn as it draws without compromise towards a shattering climax.

 
Scenic, ethereal, lyrical, kind of sexy and finally startling, Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven is an ornate musical with lots of choreography, dancing and songs being played with a number of original songs from the 1930s cherry picked by composer Eugene Doga and sung by performers from the Romen Theater.  In addition to a Moldovan crew, the film features numerous actors from the Lithuanian Film Studios company as many segments in the picture were shot in Vilnius and Kaunas for their similarities to the Bessarabian town.  The first thing one notices besides Doga’s electrifying soundtrack is the film’s lush Sovscope 70mm photography by Sergei Vronsky.  Already a veteran for his work on The Brothers Karamazov and White Snow of Russia, the look of the film has the grandiose spectacle of a David Lean widescreen epic.
 
Performance wise Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven places a lot of responsibility on its two leads but both Grigore Grigoriu as Loiko and Svetlana Toma as Rada give it their all.  Strutting the streets with fellow gypsies before moving out into the open terrain and hillsides, Toma comes across as confident, bold and sultry.  At one point she even teases Loiko by swimming nude on the riverbank who himself is increasingly conflicted about her advances.  Grigoriu as Loiko gives the character a kind of George Hilton quality, like he could fit nicely into a spaghetti western with his thievery skills while also giving off a stoic quality.  The rest of the ensemble cast is good but in this Romeo & Juliet kind of tragic love story, the film is primarily trained on the two leads.

 
Released in 1975 before touring Canadian and American film circuits years later, the film became the top grossing Soviet picture of the year amassing some 64.9 million in ticket sales.  Eventually released in the US by Sovexportfilm, the film has gone on to become one of the true competitors to such grandiose widescreen filmmaking endeavors as Todd AO or Cinerama for its still pristine images of the countryside.  Between the costumes, the choreography, performances, terrain and more recently the Gypsy Song which caught fire as a viral video on YouTube, Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven is one of the most elegant and enticing Soviet musical period dramas of the 1970s.  Though considerably darker than what American musical moviegoers are used to, it nevertheless represents an indelible big screen cinematic offering of a bygone way of life in a time not too far removed from our own.

--Andrew Kotwicki