Three Kilometres to the End of the World screened at BFI London Film Festival and is awaiting a UK-wide release date.
Winner of the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Romanian director Emanuel Pârvu’s Three Kilometres to the End of the World is part of a new wave of Romanian filmmaking that in recent years has seen the release of films ranging from Child’s Pose (2013) to Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021) and Poppy Field (2020). Like the latter, Pârvu’s film is interested in the homophobia and oppression that continues to permeate Romanian society. However, unlike Poppy Field, Pârvu focuses on the small rural communities occupying 85% of the country and the tight net of church, state and community that dictate aspiration, opportunity and freedom.
Romania has been a member of the European Union since 2007 and decriminalised homosexuality in 2001. However, laws don’t necessarily go hand in hand with cultural and social change, and gay freedoms in Romania continue to be a hostage to hostile attitudes and oppressive religious beliefs in many towns and villages. Many young gay people dream of escaping to cities like Bucharest or beyond, where they can lead an open life. Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea) is one of those young people; his home is a small village in the Danube Delta, which is a prison of farmland, waterways and grasslands that, while scenic, offer little hope for sexual or individual freedom. Fixed community rules govern home life for Adi, alongside the whims of a pompous Romanian Orthodox priest who wields his religious power freely. Adi’s future at a marine academy has already been decided by his mum and dad (Bogdan Dumitrache and Laura Vasiliu), and Adi has little choice but to accept.
As the film opens, we see Adi walking alone with a boy from out of town. It is clear their bond is one of attraction and desire, and that they are planning to enjoy a brief night of freedom, but when Adi returns home that night, he is black and blue, his body scarred and his face swollen. His dad questions him, believing the beating to have been payback for the debts he owes to a local loan shark. Adi’s injuries are indeed linked to the moneylender who holds Bogdan Dumitrache’s Dragoi over a barrel, but not for the reasons Dragoi thinks. The moneylender’s sons have beaten Adi, not because of his dad’s debt, but because he was seen kissing the out-of-town boy.
Adi’s parents are unaware of the reasons for the attack when they call the local police chief, Valeriu Andriuta, demanding he take action. Still, it’s not long before the reasons become clear, and the problem becomes Adi’s sexuality rather than the vicious, unprovoked homophobic attack. As the walls of village life close around Adi and his parents involve the local priest in his ‘treatment’, Adi’s only choice becomes clear: he must escape. However, dreaming of escape and making it a reality in a village where everyone knows each other’s movements is a barrier that is difficult to break.
Exploring the relationship between community leaders, the police, and the church in many small villages and towns, Three Kilometres to the End of the World is most powerful in its moments of silence, where mannerisms, gestures, and actions summarise intent as much as any words. Equally strong is its cinematography, where the beauty of the vast, open landscape juxtaposes with the oppressive reality of village life. Here, Pârvu paints a vivid portrait of a community culture built on oppressive rules, corruption, secrets and church power. In the confines of the village, the broader Romanian state is an inconvenience that must be controlled, brought or played to keep life as it is. It is a community frozen in time where aspiration threatens daily life, and the acceptance of gay people would apparently lead to tourists, uncontrollable sins and disease.
However, while Three Kilometres urgently shines a light on the homophobia that ripples through rural Romanian life and the community control that keeps many young people silent, it often fails to explore Adi’s deepest feelings and emotions despite a strong performance from Ciprian Chiujdea. Three kilometres may be all it takes for Adi to escape the claustrophobic net of village life, but those three kilometres may as well be three hundred as he faces the reality that he must leave everything and everyone for good, including his parents, a choice that remains painfully real for far too many young LGBTQ+ people in Romania.
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