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What a Wonderful World Movie Review

What a Wonderful World is a 2014 Moldovan drama film directed by Anatol Durbala and starring Igor Babiac. It’s a simple, but effective drama about political unrest.

A 22-year-old Moldovan comes home from the US and finds himself in the midst of a major protest. This was a real protest that happened during 2009 and it was apparently a very violent one. The fact that this movie is grounded in reality made it even more horrific because you don’t often find political violence as extreme as it was depicted here.

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Moldovan cinema is almost non-existent not so much due to its small population, but more so due to its political issues, some of which were depicted in this very film. This movie was not submitted to the Academy as the country’s government was clearly ashamed of the film’s sadly realistic depiction of the country’s numerous issues. But it needs to be praised for not only being one of the few Moldovan films released overall so far, but for being pretty strong.

We’ve seen films like this one before, but What a Wonderful World is different in its authentic setting rarely seen in films. The result is a painfully realistic drama that isn’t at all overly criticizing its country, but the director was sadly right in his intentions. This needed to be shown and Durbala did it with strong conviction and evident focus on hyperrealism.

The protagonist is barely developed, but he’s your standard guy who escaped his country to pursue better life. But he is just accidentally caught into political turmoil due to very bad circumstances. The scenes on the streets are just horrific how dangerous they felt, but that final scene with the police officer was even more atrocious.

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The highlight for me was actually the slower first half that depicted in a detailed fashion what it must feel like going back to your native country after not living there for so long. The conversation with the taxi driver was especially amusing and colorful. I did not quite care for the song used in a very obvious fashion and the technical aspects are just serviceable, but the dialogue was excellent and the directing was so good.