The Treasure

Unfamiliarity with Porumboiu's work and trusting in the comedy genre into which The Treasure is being pummeled by its distributors may give many a gullible viewer a hard time. The long horizontal shots in front of which things happen are so civil that one laments that the time devoted to the film could have been spent digging up a tree stump in the garden and, more importantly, it is impossible to deduce where it is all going. That the whole only gains some meaning with the last scene is not a bad move, especially as the entire comedic framework only reaches the viewer with Laibach in their ears, which perfectly underpins the classification of the whole film as contemporary absurdity. (24/05/2016)

This was the funniest film of the festival. A bachelor's story used by an inventive intellectual to procedurally analyze three human types, and Romania's contemporary desire to find an easy way out of stagnation is made to feel ironic. A pacifist Robin Hood armed with an annoying detector, a striking point and Laibach. #kviff2015 (12/07/2015)

This bittersweet comedy tells the story of a treasure hunt to help the two main characters to a happier life and to get them out of the debt trap. Corneliu Porumboiu's good knowledge of the realities of the time, which he used to the maximum, was the source of many black-humored situations. Perhaps it all could have been a bit more brisk, but the inventive ending along with the tones of the well-known song "Life is Life" by the Austrian band Opus, performed by the controversial Slovenian group Laibach, amused me a lot. (75%) (03/01/2021)

Perhaps when I'm older, I'll appreciate this movie more, but for now, I haven't quite managed to do so, although it must be said that I was pleasantly surprised by how high-quality a film can be made truly anywhere in Europe. It just takes money and the desire to go for it. A conversational comedy that isn't as funny as you might expect, but has a clever screenplay. (17/10/2016)

The penultimate film by Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu is a pleasant respite. The film entertains and does not disappoint. Simple static shots and no usage of music does not force emotions on the viewer. But the humorous plot makes the viewer laugh on its own. The film is well crafted and entertains. (20/12/2019)