Harry Lloyd, Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, and Anton Lesser star in "Closer to the Moon" from 2014.
This is a fictionalized version of the The Ioanid Gang's bank robbery in Romania that took place in 1959. The gang was made up of six Jewish Romanian intellectuals (at least in this film, though there were others involved apparently). They stole Romanian lei, about $250,000 U.S. dollars from an armored car at the National Bank of Romania.
This was a controversial robbery (to say the least) because no one exactly knows why they did it. The Romanian lei could only be used in Romania and not exchanged for hard currency, though supposedly the money was going to Zionist organizations. However, none of the robbers were Zionist.
The film comes up with a theory. These people were underground revolutionaries fighting the Nazis in WW II. At that time, they knew they could be caught and killed at any moment. The leader says to them, robberies are never committed in Communist countries, it's something done in capitalist countries. Let's rob a bank and make people sit up and take notice and question the ideals of Communism. We never expected to live this long anyway, so let's make our lives count. If they are caught, the punishment is execution.
They pull off the robbery under the guise of shooting a film. They are caught and then re-enact the robbery for a propaganda film. Were they forced to, were they told their executions would be canceled - no one knows.
A strange film on a strange subject for sure. My problem was that it was presented at times in a very lighthearted way with jaunty music which was odd given that the end result was going to be execution. There's nothing wrong with using humor in serious matters - Divided We Fall is an example, as is To Be Or Not to Be, and The Producers - but this was an odd mixture that, while interesting, didn't come off.
The film was also slow-moving and lacked excitement.
In the real story, the woman, played by Farmiga, is not executed and ultimately freed because she had two children. In the film she has one child, and a slightly different reason is given for her freedom.
The acting was good, particularly from David DeKeyser and Alan Corduner.
This I don't believe is an accurate re-telling of that robbery, but if you have any interest in it, you may like this.
This is a fictionalized version of the The Ioanid Gang's bank robbery in Romania that took place in 1959. The gang was made up of six Jewish Romanian intellectuals (at least in this film, though there were others involved apparently). They stole Romanian lei, about $250,000 U.S. dollars from an armored car at the National Bank of Romania.
This was a controversial robbery (to say the least) because no one exactly knows why they did it. The Romanian lei could only be used in Romania and not exchanged for hard currency, though supposedly the money was going to Zionist organizations. However, none of the robbers were Zionist.
The film comes up with a theory. These people were underground revolutionaries fighting the Nazis in WW II. At that time, they knew they could be caught and killed at any moment. The leader says to them, robberies are never committed in Communist countries, it's something done in capitalist countries. Let's rob a bank and make people sit up and take notice and question the ideals of Communism. We never expected to live this long anyway, so let's make our lives count. If they are caught, the punishment is execution.
They pull off the robbery under the guise of shooting a film. They are caught and then re-enact the robbery for a propaganda film. Were they forced to, were they told their executions would be canceled - no one knows.
A strange film on a strange subject for sure. My problem was that it was presented at times in a very lighthearted way with jaunty music which was odd given that the end result was going to be execution. There's nothing wrong with using humor in serious matters - Divided We Fall is an example, as is To Be Or Not to Be, and The Producers - but this was an odd mixture that, while interesting, didn't come off.
The film was also slow-moving and lacked excitement.
In the real story, the woman, played by Farmiga, is not executed and ultimately freed because she had two children. In the film she has one child, and a slightly different reason is given for her freedom.
The acting was good, particularly from David DeKeyser and Alan Corduner.
This I don't believe is an accurate re-telling of that robbery, but if you have any interest in it, you may like this.