Intregalde is a new film by multi-award-winning Romanian director Radu Muntean. The film tells a story about a group of volunteers who deliver humanitarian aid in the Romanian backwaters in a witty and somewhat sarcastic manner along with unexpected twists, Intregalde literally means “between two rivers”. It is a lucid pun for the title of the story of two worlds that each remain on the banks of their own river, where lives flow parallel and close, but never touch.

Armed with youthful optimism and sacks of humanitarian aid, and consumed with pre-Christmas generosity, the Bucharest humanitarians, Maria, Ilinca and Dan get stuck in the mud of the Transylvanian crags, literally and metaphorically. They would surely agree with Anton Chekhov who wrote that the unpleasant side of the forest is that it teaches a man to think when it is too late. Common concerns of the main protagonists are questions like which car to buy or how to get a sheep to celebrate Christmas, or lamenting over their emotional failures. Although they show sympathy for the people they come to help, the giving of the aid takes place routinely, and even without trying to really understand the poor people. Their, essentially benevolent idea of providing help, is in line with the needs of the inhabitants of the mountains. Thus, in one of the scenes, an old woman with a badly injured hand is given a tightly tied bag, which, in later circumstances, they themselves, with both healthy hands and a knife, barely manage to open. This dark miniature from the beginning of the film mirrors the misunderstanding between the two worlds during the entire humanitarian adventure. 

The wide shots of the Carpathian Mountains and valleys, used in the film, make the Apuseni National Park idyllic. The enjoyment of the limitless beauty of the landscape is gradually eliminated by bringing the camera closer to the mud of the forest roads, where the encounter with a peculiar old man opens up the plot. With a sure step, but with not so sure memory of a senile old man, the director takes us in a new direction. His appearance is a trigger that directs the characters in unexpected directions of tense conflicts and heated discussions. The turning point is created by choosing the wrong forest path. A cold night with sounds that evoke fear and dark scenes that are illuminated only by a small hiking lamp, in some of them awoke expectations of thriller or horror scenes. The characters are pressed with fear and lose self-confidence and control over events and make irrational decisions. New features are revealed in their personalities: Maria, Ilinca and Dan are good, altruistic and generous, but at the same time vain and hypocritical. With a dynamic and tense change of situations, the intensity and manifestation of one or another character traits change. The climax of utter loss in the dark night is counterpointed by an idyllic morning scene of dazzling fresh snow, heralding a happy ending. 

 Muntean, following Hitchcock’s advice that "there is no better way to face fear than to make a movie about fear", did a good job. Intregalde is a story of primordial fear, before which goodness retreats.Watching the movie, I doubted whether kindness was a gift from one's own or someone else's surplus?Or is it a small, intimate bookkeeping of receiving and giving, aimed at achieving long-term mental and emotional balance? Or is kindness only selfless one, in the biblical sense, as spontaneous giving without any thought or expectation? Are we lucky to have and be able to give, because happiness is multiplied by sharing?Radu Muntean, with a certain dose of humor, asked a lot of good questions, and everyone will have to look for answers in themselves.