There’s also a mystery that the documentary discusses but does not fully answer. Few people knew her name but her voice became entwined with that of the heroes she translated and she became a national symbol of freedom. Irina Nistor is revealed as a real hero who despite great personal risk continued to translate hundreds of movies because that is when she felt most free. City lights, beautiful cars, and the ordinary freedoms of worship and belief casually portrayed, all impressed on the Romanian viewers the starkness of their own situation.Īlmost all of the movies were dubbed (technically voice over translated) into Romanian by one woman who took on all the roles. The action was exciting but perhaps even more revealing were the ordinary scenes of supermarkets stocked with food, at a time when Romania was racked with severe rationing. I too remember running home filled with enthusiasm after seeing Rocky but in Romania the message was all the more powerful because there was so little else to compete with Hollywood’s images and watching was itself a kind of heroic snubbing of the regime. Underground groups would gather together to watch samizdat movies like Rocky and Lone Wolf McQuade.įor many of the young boys (now men) featured in the documentary the West’s action heroes became role models of endurance, independence and fortitude. In the mid-1980s, however, smuggled VHS tapes of American movies began to circulate. Romania was cut off from the rest of the world. After the communist regime was established in 1948, travel was restricted, the media were censored and the secret police watched everyone. Chuck Norris Versus Communism is a great documentary about art, the power of heroes, and the end of communism in Romania.
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