Simfonia dragostei Review: A Grainy, Weird Romanian Silent Trip

So, is Simfonia dragostei worth your time today?

Honestly, only if you are the kind of person who likes digging through digital archives for stuff that looks like it was filmed through a bucket of sand. If you hate silent movies or get annoyed by people overacting with their eyebrows, you will absolutely loathe this.

But for the three of us who actually care about Romanian film history, it’s a weird little treasure. It’s 1928, so everything is very grand and very dramatic for no reason at all. 🎬

The story is basically about this composer guy and his love life, which is a total wreck. I think it’s trying to be a symphony—hence the name—but sometimes it feels more like a rehearsal that went off the rails.

Vivian Gibson is in this, and she has one of those faces that was just built for silent movies. She doesn’t even have to do much, she just looks at the camera and you feel like she’s judging your entire life. There is a moment where she leans against a doorway that feels like it lasts for three years.

I kept thinking about how different this is from something like The Divorcee. That one feels like a movie, but Simfonia dragostei feels like a dream you had after eating too much cheese.

The lighting is actually kind of cool in a messy way. In one scene, the shadows on the wall are bigger than the actors, which makes the whole room look like a haunted house. I don’t think it was supposed to be a horror movie, but L. Livescu has these eyes that just pop out of the screen. 👁️

He plays the composer, and he spends a lot of time looking at sheet music like it’s written in a foreign language he doesn't know. It’s funny because you can see him really trying to look inspired. You know that look people get when they are pretending to understand modern art? That’s his whole performance.

There’s a weird bit where a character walks across a room and the camera just... shakes? Like the cameraman tripped over a rug or something. They just left it in! I love that kind of stuff. It makes it feel like real people made it, not some corporate machine.

If you compare it to The Open Road, this feels way more stuck in its own head. It’s very theatrical. Every gesture is huge.

I noticed a scratch on the film during the middle part that looks like a little hair dancing on the screen. I spent about five minutes just watching the hair instead of the plot. The plot gets a bit thin there anyway, so I didn't miss much.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Simfonia dragostei (1928) through its definitive frames.

It’s not exactly a barrel of laughs like The Sawmill. It takes itself very, very seriously. Like, life or death serious over a piano song.

There is this one shot of a garden that is actually quite pretty, even with all the grain. It made me wish I could see what this looked like when the print was fresh. It probably looked stunning back then, before 90 years of dust got to it.

The pacing is... well, it’s a silent movie. It moves at the speed of a tired turtle. But that’s okay if you’re in the right mood. You have to just let the images wash over you.

I found myself wondering what the director, Ion Şahighian, was thinking during the big climax. Everyone is moving so fast but nothing is really happening? It’s all very abstract.

It reminds me a little of the energy in The Man on the Box, but without the jokes. Just the frantic energy of people who really want you to know they are FEELING things.

I think my favorite part was a secondary character who just stands in the background looking confused. I felt like that guy. Just happy to be there, not really sure what the symphony is about.

Is it a masterpiece? Probably not. Is it a vibe? Definitely. 🎹

If you find a copy, watch it with the lights off and maybe some weird lo-fi music in the background. It fits better than whatever original score they probably had. It’s a movie that feels like it belongs in a basement.

Don't expect it to make total sense. Just look at the way the light hits Vivian Gibson's hair. That’s the real movie right there.

One more thing—the title cards are written in a way that feels very poetic, but also a bit dramatic. "The heart is a lonely violin" or something like that. It’s cheesy but you kind of have to love it.

Anyway, it’s a short watch if you can find it. Better than watching another CGI explosion fest, at least for one night. It makes you appreciate how far we've come, but also what we lost. Those faces were just different back then.