After a series of films set in the heart of alienating existence in Bucharest under transition, Radu Muntean and several of his frequent contributors swich the brutalist concrete for the cold landscapes of Transylvania in his latest film Intregalde (2021), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and which could be seen by the regional audiences at the last year's editions of Zagreb Film Festival and the Auteur Film Festival.

The action begins with the gathering of donations in a warehouse crawling with people. We are soon introduced to volunteers who took on the responsibility for delivering the assistance needed to the people in isolated areas of the municipality of Intregalde in Transylvania during the cold holidays. The good will of the main characters — Dan (Alex Bogdan), Marija (Maria Popistașu) and Ilinka (Ilona Brezoianu) — will be tested when they come to a choice: to help the local Kente Aron (Luca Sabin) and stray from the path, or to proceed with their plan of action. What they couldn't count on was that — once they get stuck in the woods, on the eve of a cold night, without any help in sight — the white sacks filled with donations earlier that day would turn out to be the last straw for their survival.

Intregalde is a film of unusual patience in its staging, which should not be interpreted as slowness. On the contrary, although everything seems realistic, the spontaneous and too often humorous dialogues (where Luka Sabin excels) and the abundance of details leave the impression that the story can take us in any direction. Here, patience refers not only to the long shots in which the action takes place, but that patience is present at the level of the content and allows the story to unfold slowly. 

Although the expression is realistic, film staging can hardly be said to be vérité. Although lighting is most often natural, with instances of artificial light usually from flashlights or vehicles, the camera does not monitor the action actively, but rather distantly. The cinematics of Intregalde do not build tension through a counterpoint of film shots as much as by conscious decisions on what was left out. The power of the omitted is best reflected in the moments when the characters try to light the way with small beams of light in the stark darkness of the icy forest, while the darkness at the border of the visible in the rest of the frame seems to invite the viewer to come as close to the screen as possible. The attraction comes with its own kind of trepidation, because the darkness that invites us also scares us at the same time, keeping us at a safe distance.

It could be said that the characters themselves act in a similar way. In one of the scenes at the beginning of the film, in the food package delivery action, we see Marija — from the entrance to the home of her grandmother with an injured hand — telling her preparedly and flatly that her colleagues and she will not be visiting the area during the Christmas holidays, leaving a bag of food at the entrance and moving on with her work. After Maria exits the frame, we linger on the threshold with a huge white sack, patiently waiting for the older woman to enter the frame and drag the sack away as well as she can with her healthy hand. 

Like the audience that tries to stay at the edge of darkness, without completely giving in to the unknown, the main characters go no further than the threshold of the homes of the people for whose safety they are fighting. They get involved just enough to congratulate themselves on their efforts, but not enough to truly dive into that mud. A decision that is completely understandable given that this mud of anxious existence is thick enough and deep enough to overcome the lung capacity of even the strongest of divers. Therefore, instead of condemning these actions, Intregalde creates space for different interpretations of the urban volunteers' attitude towards the locals and raises the question of responsibility that stems from providing assistance.