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Courtesy of Sundance International Film Festival

A winning debut doc celebrating Hollywood's cultural impact.

Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Documentary Competition

Ilinca Calugareanu

Movies really do change the world in Ilinca Calugareanu's Chuck Norris Vs. Communism, a we-were-there account of how bootlegs of Hollywood movies inspired citizens of Ceaucescu's Romania to dream of life beyond the Iron Curtain and, eventually, rise up for it. The film's message is a flattering one for an industry audience, even if many Sundancers would rather distance themselves from the lowest-common-denominator fare celebrated here. But Calugareanu's presentation, which evocatively braids reenacted storylines with present-day interviews, is skillful enough to win over viewers with no professional investment in cultural imperialism. While the focus on Romania may sound limiting, the film's narrative is broadly applicable and entertainingly told; it should fare well in the nonfiction marketplace.

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If not for commercial considerations, the doc should really be titled Irina NistorVs. Communism, as we quickly learn that this young woman's voice was synonymous throughout Romania with American movies. Though she worked during the day as a translator in a censor's office, Nistor's passion was her secret job, doing real-time dubbing for entrepreneur Teodor Zamfir, who smuggled movies across the border with Hungary. Translating seven, sometimes as many as ten movies in a row from English into Romanian, she dubbed all the film's characters (male and female) in a thin, high voice. Calugareanu's interviewees laughingly recall the euphemisms she'd use for profanity or sex talk (we see some hilarious examples), but their fondness for a woman they never got to see is clear.

The film cannily withholds Nistor and Zamfir from us (along with Mircea Cojocaru, a backup translator), using only their voices to narrate dramatic reenactments. We watch Zamfir bribe border guards; see an operation where more than three hundred VHS decks duplicated tapes at a time; go nervously with Irina to her day job, where officials hinted they knew what she was up to.

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'Chuck Norris Vs. Communism': Sundance Review