Return from Hell (1983) - full transcript
A peasant returns to his village as a rich man. Here he finds that he still has feelings for his ex-girlfriend, even though she is now married to another man. Trying to get rid of these feelings, he gets married to another girl who is madly in love with him. This only makes things harder for him and pushes him to have an affair. The break of the first world war puts him next to the cheated husband and they soon find out that their lives might depend on the other man. Will they be able to put everything aside in order to survive, or will they be consumed by their hatred for each other?
RETURN FROM HELL
Take this load
to the village. I'll pay you.
Uncle Florea says he's known Dumitru
since he was a gendarme at the Rosia mines.
He was mean and feared.
I remember when he left the village.
He was very young, barely 18.
Now that the old man is dead,
he left him his fortune.
Not even Grigor Albu is as rich as him.
Surely there must be money in that box.
Come!
Hold him!
Good day!
He was a gendarme...
So what?!
Fine thing not to recognize
the folks in one's village!
I like it.
How much do you want for it?
Now that our lands are
bordering, we'll settle something!
How are you, Veronica?
As you see!
You married Ion!
Ever since I got back,
I sensed you avoided me.
We didn't happen
to meet, Mitre.
Still, if I wanted to meet we did!
Don't say you won't come to
the big nut tree tonight!
I'm loath sleeping home tonight.
What's the matter with you, Veronica?
You know, Ion is away
and last night I heard the owl.
As if you never slept alone before and
never heard it before. But you didn't complain!
Let father come and sleep
at my place tonight, ma.
What's up, girl?
You're feverish!
- I don't know, ma, I'm scared.
- Never mind, my girl, I'll come.
May your home be blessed with kids
and your yard full of cattle!
Grigor Albu's
daughter is a gem.
Come brothers, let's
drink to Catarina's health.
Long live!
Long live the bride and the groom!
Long live the newly weds!
Who said
gendermes can't make merry?!
- You care so much for weapons, Dumitru!
- More than anything in this world!
No, let me be!
Calm down, wife.
Why do you hit her?!
Why, man? If I catch you hit her again..
For all the gendarme you are
I'll break your neck just like this!
Why, Mitru?
What did I do?
Seven dragons
with 99 stabbing tongues...
- Now go into the world.
- Go out in the world.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Come to me.
- Come to me.
- Go into the world.
- Go into the world.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Come to me.
- Come to me.
- So we eat from the same pot.
- So we eat from the same pot.
- So we sleep in the same bed,
- So we sleep in the same bed,
- Come to me, come to me, come to me!
- Come to me, to me, to me!
Let everybody know
that war has started!
Imperial decree:
All the lads in the village must take their
trunks and food and come to the village hall!
Ma, ma, is it true?
Yes! The bells have been tolling since morning
and the telegraph's been working non-stop!
Less than a week after the
wedding to let him go to his death?!
God, Catarina, you
forgot the beatings and the shame!
There wasn't much joy still I'd live
with him even if he beat me for ever!
If only he didn't leave!
You're so stupid, girl!
Let him break her bones.
Until he returns
the bitch'll have calmed down!
You too think that?!
I'm not deaf and dumb!
They've been together before.
After he maimed you and put you
to shame he's taken on that trollop!
Mother!
To the army...
Mitru!
Mitru!
What do you
want with him?! Go to hell!
Let me be! Let me be!
What do you want with him?!
Well, Dumitru, well...
You'll be dead by my hand...
Ion, you're not the first to brag like this!
Only that I'm not afraid
of anything and anyone!
You hear me?
- Show 'em to me!
- Show you what?
- The letters from him!
- You're crazy!
- Show 'em to me!
- I don't have any letter!
Don't tell me you don't write him?!
Don't tell me you don't know his address!
I do!
The notary learnt it!
But I didn't get
a single line from him.
- As if the earth swallowed him!
- Better it swallowed you!
- Trollop! You went with him.
- We loved each other, I don't deny.
I loved him since we were kids.
I waited for him years many years...
but you're so mean and miscreant.
You and the people in the village!
You took him away from me...
only that I loved him more than anybody
and he returned to his love.
Damn you all!
Veronica, perhaps
if I write to him, I'll be luckier.
SOMEWHERE IN GALITIA
SUMMER OF 1916
You hurting bad?
When ma sent me to school, she
wanted me to be a girl. Bought me shoes.
Line up!
Private Ion Rosu,
I gave an order!
Attention!
Forward march!
Forward march!
What are we doing in Galitia?!
You'll die of
my hand!
- Romanians?
- Yes.
Have some. Your brother?
- No.
- Friend?
- Where you take him?
- You think he'll die?
No, he won't die so easily.
I just know he won't.
I can't!
You must!
- You saw?
- What?
The grass here is dry...
And the fields at Poiana Mare,
Soon it's harvest time.
Better shoot me, loan.
After all, you wanted to shoot me.
After having
carried you so long...
God'd strike me dead!
Come, Dumitru!
Do what I tell you
or I'll cut off your hands!
We die on the front
and your people fall on us from behind!
They entered the war?
So you don't know?
You don't know that your
people fight against us?
(Ungarian) You don't know?!
You lied to me shamelessly!
Dig your pit!
Go in peace!
Ion..
What happened to you,Ion?
Don't leave, me, brother...
Let's go...
That you, Dumitru?
Dumitru, that you?
Nicodim, you saw anybody?
Nope.
Who did the dogs bark at?
At this goddam
male, hell!
Nicodim,
there's been somebody here.
How can that be, mistress?
- Catarina, what happened?
- Dumitru wrote to you?
You won't catch me there,
not for the life of me!
Catarina, my girl it doesn't behoove, my girl
not to go there in day time.
What will people say, what will
he say when he returns?
You come and sleep with us at night.
I won't go to sleep in daytime, ma.
I won't ever again go into that cursed house.
You can't let it
go to the dogs.
- Dumitru is dead, ma!
- What are you saying, how do you know?
I had signs.
All my waiting is for nothing.
My God!
The shell hit the roof! Bad sign!
The front is drawing close on us!
I saw it with my own eyes
going out of the window.
What did it look like?
It was floating like a white mist, and then,
it hid in the bowels of the earth.
Don't say that,
I saw it was a woman.
Where did you see a woman
walking at night in such a place?
The two of us were coming
from the mill, late last night.
We left our carts there
and we came down the road on foot.
When we got to the house, a long black
shadow stretched secretly on the porch.
Whatever you may
think, that's what we saw!
Last night I saw the gendarme.
You too saw the shadow?
You, an old man
to say such a stupid thing!
What, now you too
believe in ghosts?
I believe in no ghost, master!
I only said that
Il saw the gendarme, not his shadow!
You imagined.
If it had been him, the dog'd have
barked at Catarina, or at Veronica.
Maybe it's his apparition!
Did you take a close look?
Am I a woman to see
things and apparitions?!
Veronica!
Hey! Who's there?
Anybody out there?
Mitre!
Mitre!
Mitre!
Mitre!
Mitre, that you?
I don't want anybody to hear us.
Mitre, my love,
I didn't recognize you!
Don't shout! I've deserted.
The patrols are looking for me!
Dear me!
Mitre, love,
I've been waiting for so long!
Feel the cut?
They broke my head!
At the hospital they told me
I hanged between life and death for 10 days
- But they're lying!
- Why should they?
They're lying! I didn't hang between
life an death. I actually died then.
Mitre, what kind of talk
is this? You're sick!
Tell it again!
They sent me to the front
the second time so I ran away!
Don't worry, I'll hide you.
No patrol will find you!
- I don't want you to hide me!
- Mitre!
I can't stay put,
I feel like taking off!
Rambling through the woods...
They're calling for me and I can't get there.
I'm walking, walking
and I can't go back.
- Hear?
- What is it?
They are calling me.
Mitre, what happened to you, Mitre?
To me? Nothing. Not
a thing, but to the other...
- To whom?
- Ion!
- Mitre!
- He was good.
- Shut up!
- If he shows up, don't chase him away.
Give him water for he's thirsty!
Give him food for he's hungry!
Put on clean bed sheets!
Ion's dead!
Ion is my mate!
He held to me when the going got tough!
But I saw the list with my own eyes.
Ion was good,
it's true but I didn't love him.
Before he left I told him everything.
He understood and forgave me.
You hear? He forgave me!
Wait, don't go!
God punished me enough!
People cursed me,
don't you hurt me, too.
It's only you that I have!
Wicked woman, you're
wallowing in sin for your pleasure!
- Veronica!
- Veronica!
What's the matter with her?
Veronica!
Veronica!
You're wasting your breath.
Let's send for her parents.
Put her in the cart
and take her to the hospital.
You are not Mitru, you are his shadow!
She doesn't know what she is saying!
She saw a phantom!
It's an ilness without a cure!
- Hear the bells?
- Yea.
- Who died?
- God knows.
- Who died?
- I don't know, my girl.
Many are on the verge.
My girl, what's wrong with you?
It's nothing, father.
Nothing at all!
You have problems, my lass.
It will pass, father,
I'm sure it will.
- Who died?
- The wife of neighbor Vasile.
- Poor kids, what a helpless brood!
- And the poor man's on the front.
Ilie, man! You're
crazy or what? Let me be!
Who the hell made you
steal in here? Greenhorn!
Aren't you ashamed? Let me alone!
What do you think I am?
Leave me be!
Go, go if I say so, it's not
nice to look at me like that!
- Alright like this?
- Alright. Enough. Now go!
Ilie, nothing foolish please. Ilie!
Somebody could walk in on us, Ilie.
Go, run!
Ilie!
Ilie, where are you?
Ilie, where are you?
Ilie, where are you?
How are you, Veronica?
So...
How are your parents?
They' re fine, in good health.
Stop, man!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Dumitre!
Dumitru, you hear me?
It's me, Grigor!
Dumitru!
- From what village?
- From Virtopi.
- You're from there, too?
- As you see, lawyer.
- Dumitru Bogdan?
- That's right!
Listen, this man was caught by a patrol
a year ago and was brought here for desertion.
- Goodness, they shot him?
- No, they didn't shoot him.
He stood trial?
A great misfortune
hit this gendarme!
We began the trial and we realized
we had no culprit!
- He wasn't guilty?
- Deserting is always a fault!
I said we had no culprit since
the man the patrol caught was insane.
Insane?
Yes, yes. At first we thought
he was feigning like so many others.
- They confirmed that he was mad.
- And what became of him?
He must be in a madhouse.
I don't remember where, but I can find out.
No! It's not necessary.
Grigore! Grigore!
Grigore, man!
The gendarme's house is on fire.
I've never seen such a terrible thing.
Grigore!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Take this load
to the village. I'll pay you.
Uncle Florea says he's known Dumitru
since he was a gendarme at the Rosia mines.
He was mean and feared.
I remember when he left the village.
He was very young, barely 18.
Now that the old man is dead,
he left him his fortune.
Not even Grigor Albu is as rich as him.
Surely there must be money in that box.
Come!
Hold him!
Good day!
He was a gendarme...
So what?!
Fine thing not to recognize
the folks in one's village!
I like it.
How much do you want for it?
Now that our lands are
bordering, we'll settle something!
How are you, Veronica?
As you see!
You married Ion!
Ever since I got back,
I sensed you avoided me.
We didn't happen
to meet, Mitre.
Still, if I wanted to meet we did!
Don't say you won't come to
the big nut tree tonight!
I'm loath sleeping home tonight.
What's the matter with you, Veronica?
You know, Ion is away
and last night I heard the owl.
As if you never slept alone before and
never heard it before. But you didn't complain!
Let father come and sleep
at my place tonight, ma.
What's up, girl?
You're feverish!
- I don't know, ma, I'm scared.
- Never mind, my girl, I'll come.
May your home be blessed with kids
and your yard full of cattle!
Grigor Albu's
daughter is a gem.
Come brothers, let's
drink to Catarina's health.
Long live!
Long live the bride and the groom!
Long live the newly weds!
Who said
gendermes can't make merry?!
- You care so much for weapons, Dumitru!
- More than anything in this world!
No, let me be!
Calm down, wife.
Why do you hit her?!
Why, man? If I catch you hit her again..
For all the gendarme you are
I'll break your neck just like this!
Why, Mitru?
What did I do?
Seven dragons
with 99 stabbing tongues...
- Now go into the world.
- Go out in the world.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Come to me.
- Come to me.
- Go into the world.
- Go into the world.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Across the world, into the ground.
- Come to me.
- Come to me.
- So we eat from the same pot.
- So we eat from the same pot.
- So we sleep in the same bed,
- So we sleep in the same bed,
- Come to me, come to me, come to me!
- Come to me, to me, to me!
Let everybody know
that war has started!
Imperial decree:
All the lads in the village must take their
trunks and food and come to the village hall!
Ma, ma, is it true?
Yes! The bells have been tolling since morning
and the telegraph's been working non-stop!
Less than a week after the
wedding to let him go to his death?!
God, Catarina, you
forgot the beatings and the shame!
There wasn't much joy still I'd live
with him even if he beat me for ever!
If only he didn't leave!
You're so stupid, girl!
Let him break her bones.
Until he returns
the bitch'll have calmed down!
You too think that?!
I'm not deaf and dumb!
They've been together before.
After he maimed you and put you
to shame he's taken on that trollop!
Mother!
To the army...
Mitru!
Mitru!
What do you
want with him?! Go to hell!
Let me be! Let me be!
What do you want with him?!
Well, Dumitru, well...
You'll be dead by my hand...
Ion, you're not the first to brag like this!
Only that I'm not afraid
of anything and anyone!
You hear me?
- Show 'em to me!
- Show you what?
- The letters from him!
- You're crazy!
- Show 'em to me!
- I don't have any letter!
Don't tell me you don't write him?!
Don't tell me you don't know his address!
I do!
The notary learnt it!
But I didn't get
a single line from him.
- As if the earth swallowed him!
- Better it swallowed you!
- Trollop! You went with him.
- We loved each other, I don't deny.
I loved him since we were kids.
I waited for him years many years...
but you're so mean and miscreant.
You and the people in the village!
You took him away from me...
only that I loved him more than anybody
and he returned to his love.
Damn you all!
Veronica, perhaps
if I write to him, I'll be luckier.
SOMEWHERE IN GALITIA
SUMMER OF 1916
You hurting bad?
When ma sent me to school, she
wanted me to be a girl. Bought me shoes.
Line up!
Private Ion Rosu,
I gave an order!
Attention!
Forward march!
Forward march!
What are we doing in Galitia?!
You'll die of
my hand!
- Romanians?
- Yes.
Have some. Your brother?
- No.
- Friend?
- Where you take him?
- You think he'll die?
No, he won't die so easily.
I just know he won't.
I can't!
You must!
- You saw?
- What?
The grass here is dry...
And the fields at Poiana Mare,
Soon it's harvest time.
Better shoot me, loan.
After all, you wanted to shoot me.
After having
carried you so long...
God'd strike me dead!
Come, Dumitru!
Do what I tell you
or I'll cut off your hands!
We die on the front
and your people fall on us from behind!
They entered the war?
So you don't know?
You don't know that your
people fight against us?
(Ungarian) You don't know?!
You lied to me shamelessly!
Dig your pit!
Go in peace!
Ion..
What happened to you,Ion?
Don't leave, me, brother...
Let's go...
That you, Dumitru?
Dumitru, that you?
Nicodim, you saw anybody?
Nope.
Who did the dogs bark at?
At this goddam
male, hell!
Nicodim,
there's been somebody here.
How can that be, mistress?
- Catarina, what happened?
- Dumitru wrote to you?
You won't catch me there,
not for the life of me!
Catarina, my girl it doesn't behoove, my girl
not to go there in day time.
What will people say, what will
he say when he returns?
You come and sleep with us at night.
I won't go to sleep in daytime, ma.
I won't ever again go into that cursed house.
You can't let it
go to the dogs.
- Dumitru is dead, ma!
- What are you saying, how do you know?
I had signs.
All my waiting is for nothing.
My God!
The shell hit the roof! Bad sign!
The front is drawing close on us!
I saw it with my own eyes
going out of the window.
What did it look like?
It was floating like a white mist, and then,
it hid in the bowels of the earth.
Don't say that,
I saw it was a woman.
Where did you see a woman
walking at night in such a place?
The two of us were coming
from the mill, late last night.
We left our carts there
and we came down the road on foot.
When we got to the house, a long black
shadow stretched secretly on the porch.
Whatever you may
think, that's what we saw!
Last night I saw the gendarme.
You too saw the shadow?
You, an old man
to say such a stupid thing!
What, now you too
believe in ghosts?
I believe in no ghost, master!
I only said that
Il saw the gendarme, not his shadow!
You imagined.
If it had been him, the dog'd have
barked at Catarina, or at Veronica.
Maybe it's his apparition!
Did you take a close look?
Am I a woman to see
things and apparitions?!
Veronica!
Hey! Who's there?
Anybody out there?
Mitre!
Mitre!
Mitre!
Mitre!
Mitre, that you?
I don't want anybody to hear us.
Mitre, my love,
I didn't recognize you!
Don't shout! I've deserted.
The patrols are looking for me!
Dear me!
Mitre, love,
I've been waiting for so long!
Feel the cut?
They broke my head!
At the hospital they told me
I hanged between life and death for 10 days
- But they're lying!
- Why should they?
They're lying! I didn't hang between
life an death. I actually died then.
Mitre, what kind of talk
is this? You're sick!
Tell it again!
They sent me to the front
the second time so I ran away!
Don't worry, I'll hide you.
No patrol will find you!
- I don't want you to hide me!
- Mitre!
I can't stay put,
I feel like taking off!
Rambling through the woods...
They're calling for me and I can't get there.
I'm walking, walking
and I can't go back.
- Hear?
- What is it?
They are calling me.
Mitre, what happened to you, Mitre?
To me? Nothing. Not
a thing, but to the other...
- To whom?
- Ion!
- Mitre!
- He was good.
- Shut up!
- If he shows up, don't chase him away.
Give him water for he's thirsty!
Give him food for he's hungry!
Put on clean bed sheets!
Ion's dead!
Ion is my mate!
He held to me when the going got tough!
But I saw the list with my own eyes.
Ion was good,
it's true but I didn't love him.
Before he left I told him everything.
He understood and forgave me.
You hear? He forgave me!
Wait, don't go!
God punished me enough!
People cursed me,
don't you hurt me, too.
It's only you that I have!
Wicked woman, you're
wallowing in sin for your pleasure!
- Veronica!
- Veronica!
What's the matter with her?
Veronica!
Veronica!
You're wasting your breath.
Let's send for her parents.
Put her in the cart
and take her to the hospital.
You are not Mitru, you are his shadow!
She doesn't know what she is saying!
She saw a phantom!
It's an ilness without a cure!
- Hear the bells?
- Yea.
- Who died?
- God knows.
- Who died?
- I don't know, my girl.
Many are on the verge.
My girl, what's wrong with you?
It's nothing, father.
Nothing at all!
You have problems, my lass.
It will pass, father,
I'm sure it will.
- Who died?
- The wife of neighbor Vasile.
- Poor kids, what a helpless brood!
- And the poor man's on the front.
Ilie, man! You're
crazy or what? Let me be!
Who the hell made you
steal in here? Greenhorn!
Aren't you ashamed? Let me alone!
What do you think I am?
Leave me be!
Go, go if I say so, it's not
nice to look at me like that!
- Alright like this?
- Alright. Enough. Now go!
Ilie, nothing foolish please. Ilie!
Somebody could walk in on us, Ilie.
Go, run!
Ilie!
Ilie, where are you?
Ilie, where are you?
Ilie, where are you?
How are you, Veronica?
So...
How are your parents?
They' re fine, in good health.
Stop, man!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Dumitre!
Dumitru, you hear me?
It's me, Grigor!
Dumitru!
- From what village?
- From Virtopi.
- You're from there, too?
- As you see, lawyer.
- Dumitru Bogdan?
- That's right!
Listen, this man was caught by a patrol
a year ago and was brought here for desertion.
- Goodness, they shot him?
- No, they didn't shoot him.
He stood trial?
A great misfortune
hit this gendarme!
We began the trial and we realized
we had no culprit!
- He wasn't guilty?
- Deserting is always a fault!
I said we had no culprit since
the man the patrol caught was insane.
Insane?
Yes, yes. At first we thought
he was feigning like so many others.
- They confirmed that he was mad.
- And what became of him?
He must be in a madhouse.
I don't remember where, but I can find out.
No! It's not necessary.
Grigore! Grigore!
Grigore, man!
The gendarme's house is on fire.
I've never seen such a terrible thing.
Grigore!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!
Dumitru!