Elevator (Dorobantu)

George Dorobantu’s debut feature is a short, not too sharp drama about a couple of Romanian teenagers who find themselves holed up in the broken down lift of an abandoned factory after they go there to make out.

Made for only €200 and set entirely within the four walls they’re trapped in, Elevator suffers from an inability to work a way out of its financial restrictions, opting for weak and cheap camera effects instead of delivering a smart script. Lines about how their situation ‘isn’t like it is in the movies’ elicit immediate groans, as does the inevitable schmaltziness when they reminisce about their parents. If the intention was to produce some action movie fluff, then lines like this can quite easily be glossed over, but it’s clear that Dorobantu wants us to really care about these people – he’s as interested in the characters themselves as the situation they’ve been placed in.

The realism is too quickly undercut by the occasional montages that act as a transition between scenes. A haunting refrain accompanies the kids seen howling and scrabbling at the walls, their faces splintering and the camera juddering in a misjudged attempt at building atmosphere.

However scrappy and underdeveloped the film feels, it’s admirable that Elevator tends to play down the horror story dynamics of the situation in favour of allowing the characters to develop mutual tenderness. When the female lead remembers some leftover food she has in her satchel and eats it secretly, her actions don’t get discovered, turning the picture into a primal horror film.

The performances from Cristi Petrescu and Iulia Verdes are strong, managing to pass off the dud lines they’ve been given without causing too much pain for the viewer. There’s a sweet tenderness between them that engages, especially in the long final scene which flashes back to them chatting and flirting with each other in the lift before they realise it’s broken. It’s easily the most rewarding scene in the film, and so it’s a shame that these characters weren’t developed further.

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