Gadjo Dilo (M)

Reviewed by Peter Calder

Cast: Romain Duris, Rona Hartner, Izidor Serban

Director: Tony Gatlif

In the third part of an informal trilogy which began with Les Princes in 1982 and continued with the enchanting Latcho Drom of two years ago Gatlif approaches his theme - the marginalisation of European gypsies - indirectly; the common gypsy experience of being an outsider is visited on a hip Parisian rather than the rough-hewn Romany.

When Stephen (Duris) arrives at a snowbound village in Romania searching for a legendary gypsy folk-singer who recorded one of his father's songs, the soles are out of his shoes and he is distrusted and taunted by the villagers as a "gadjo dilo" or "crazy stranger".

But the bibulous fiddler Izidor (Serban) adopts him as a son and shields him from the villagers' hostility. The lustrous Sabina (Hartner), a refugee from a bad marriage to a Belgian, helps him over the language barrier; Izidor's patronage helps him across the cultural divide and before the film has run its course he has entered into the world of his hosts in a way he would never have imagined.

Gatlif's film is a dazzling blend of ethnographic documentary and artfully constructed narrative which mixes raucous comedy with social commentary into a fizzy cinematic cocktail, spiked with the music and dance which so intoxicated us in Latcho Drom.

The two-way cultural exchange makes for sublime moments as Stephane teaches the old man to say unprintable things about Jean-Marie Le Pen and the village children teach Stephane to say unprintable things about... well, about unprintable things.

And Gatlif directs with a beautifully restrained hand. There are occasional elegiac moments - a shot of a horse in moonlit snow sticks in my mind - but in many sequences, Stephane is left to make his own way and the camera captures scenes of astonishing immediacy. Serban, too, a screen novice, applies himself to his duties with a winning gusto; according to reports, he prepared for scenes in which he was meant to be drunk by getting utterly crocked.

Best of all, Gatlif, born in Algeria of gypsy origins but raised in France, resists the temptation to romanticise his subjects. The film's gypsies are profane, lubricious and more than mildly dishonest, but the director's astringent lack of sentimentality is countered by the hugely engaging and generous performances from his three leads.

Less awesome and spectacular than its predecessor, this film provides an intimate glimpse of a community on the edge. It leaves us with the taste of life sharp on our tongues. * * * * *
-Weekend TimeOut