Romania, Realm of the Supernatural: 'The Cave' (2005)
Specifications: Title: The Cave Release Date: August 26, 2005 Genre: Action/Adventure, Horror, Thriller Director: Bruce Hunt Writers: Michael Steinberg, Tegan West Characters: Dr. Nicolai, Katheryn Jannings, Alex Kim, group of American 'spelunkers' (Jack and Tyler), diving team (Charlie, Briggs, Strode, Top). Distributed by: Screen Gems
Production company: Lakeshore Entertainment Country: USA Running time: 97 minutes Language: English Setting: deep in the Carpathian Mountains, in Romania.
Synopsis:
A team of archeologists are excavating the ruins of an Eastern Orthodox abbey, where they unearth images of a medieval battle between the Knights Templar and winged demons, and discover the cave system with its massive underground river. Because the group believes that the cave could contain an undiscovered ecosystem, they hire a team of American "spelunkers" to help them investigate its unknown depths. The Americans arrive in Romania with the latest equipment and are as excited as the Romanians to start uncovering the secrets hidden in the heart of the earth.
Tropes: supernatural creatures, land stuck in the past, manipulation and lies, land soaked in blood and death, innocent and naive Americans.
Personal opinion:
If we look at this movie and at other films and tv shows, which describe places from Romania as being haunted or full of creatures and monsters who are waiting to eat you or take your life, and we also consider that, in general, Romanians are also seen as manipulative, barbaric, uncivilized and bloody, we can say that for sure this place is not part of the modern world. Or its geography doesn't seem to be and, unlike other countries who were also full of monsters and strange beings but got rid of them, Romania appears to do the other way around, becoming more and more of a refuge for monsters and for the supernatural.
Following the plot of The Cave, starting with the group of Russian and British explorers, who during the Cold War tried to find a 'long-lost' 13th century Eastern Ortodox abbey and discover below the church the cave with its system of tunnels and then going with the Romanian and American archeologysts, thirty years later, in the same place, we discover that nothing changed: the cave is the same, the monsters are as dangerous and hungry, and the people keep dying or are infected, because curiosity pushes them there. It's a vicious circle which doesn't seem to stop and all the bodies and blood just continue to feed the supernatural roots.
Compared with other movies and tv shows that picture Romanians as vicious, liars, vengeful, barbaric and without morals, The Cave doesn't try to draw a line of separation between Americans and Romanians, both groups having the same traits, good and bad. They help each other, they all lie, they fight for their lives and, when it is needed, they don't hesitate to kill or to sacrifice a life. But on the other hand, Romania is still seen as a dangerous place, or a country which has some places which should be hidden or destroyed, because they remind us of long gone times when creatures lurked in the shadows or when the sun was up, taking lives and scaring everyone.
As such, even though The Cave doesn't clearly echoes what Goldsworthy and Todorova have to say, implying that Romania is an uncivilized land, bloody, dangerous, where men and monsters wait for you to come closer so they can kill you, steal from you or use you, in a way it suggests that. Maybe Romanians have moved forward and they look at the West, modernizing the country and trying to get rid of their old traditions and skeletons from the closet, but is not that easy. And is not need for much, just for someone to wander somewhere, and the past in back in the present; or possibly it never left.
