TRANSYLVANIAN TIMBER

The only way to reach the Water Valley stretching along the border with Ukraine in northern Romania is via a narrow-gauge railway. The line is operated by a wood processing company which uses it to transport workers and tree trunks through the hilly forests. Romanian border officials now also use the old railway line to patrol the border of the European Union.
TRANSYLVANIAN TIMBER provides this information in an on-screen text at the beginning of the film. It then shows scenes shot around the railway, there is no dialogue. A mountain stream rushes through the forest, men fish by the river, a shepherd tends his flock, a car drives along a deserted country road, and again and again viewers look into the faces of men on the train. These impressions from a region on the fringes of Europe are interrupted halfway through the film: a ship crosses the screen, and a disembodied voice retells a dream. Exactly how this relates to the rest of the film is not clear, but these scenes are disorientating and seem unreal in a documentary. At some point the picture is upside-down and fir trees stretch from sky to ground. The borders between obvious visual manipulation and the reality of the Water Valley get blurred. There’s something strange about that man with the little EU flag. What does the outdoor mass held by the riverside mean? And those converted car bodies that race along the tracks through snow-covered countryside look absurd. But they probably really do exist.