New Europe Competition review - IT TAKES TWO TO FENCE by Andrei Gheorghe

Love, friendship and fencing. It Takes Two to Fence by Andrei Gheorghe was screened in the New Europe Competition section of the 22nd Febiofest - Prague International Film Festival.

 

A young girl named Anda moves to the Romanian port of Costanta to stay close to her boyfriend Mircea, an ambitious fencer. While there, she starts training with another fencer named Alex, whom she grows fond of and from whom she receives the attentions that Mircea is not able to give her as he trains intensively for his competition fencing. From this situations develops a love triangle in which, inevitably, an old love is traded for a new love. It Takes Two to Fence follows a simple narrative structure.

 

There are a few elements that particularly come to mind in making It Takes Two to Fence seem all the more impressive as it treads on its conventional grounds. The one that comes to mind is the air of authenticity that it carries. This is certainly revealed by its technical and visual aspect as well. Right in the midst of the digital filmmaking revolution, in fact, Andrei Gheorghe decides to use cameras with a resolution much lower than the usual kind we are used to seeing in movies nowadays. This adds a certain bite and grit, as well as admirable texture, that the filmmaker and cinematographer fully understand and openly play with - particularly by accentuating its charge through great uses of apparently automatic focus and by intertwining shots of the exterior settings with the simple narrative, speeding it up in the process. In this way, paradoxically, the imperfections of these cameras remind us of the organic feel of analogic filmmaking.

 

But this techniques also allows a more intimate understanding of the character's reactions to the situations, which makes up for the inevitability and predictability of the story's outcome. The ending is inevitable, and the film also suffers from an impending lack of tension. But the emotional conflict of the characters is far from being superficial, and aside from the principal themes and issues, are also other questions raised on the more general theme of love and particularly its constant battle with ambition. Distracted by his intensive training for competition fencing, Mircea disregards Anda, whose devotion to Mircea clearly hides some more organic and human insecurities about her future. Meanwhile, it is implied that Alex has suffered an injury that will most likely keep him on the sidelines for a long time. For both it seems, there is nothing left to do but love each other.

 

Viewpoint is also fascinating. It is the viewpoint as seen through the discipline of sportsmanship, particularly a sport as disciplined as fencing. It is also the viewpoint originating from the leading, pivotal character of It Takes Two to Fence being a woman, which provides a feminist outlook that even allows us the pleasure of exploring Anda's imprefections and human traits in a perfectly natural way, and being free as members of the audience to accept them or reject them.