A fascinating delve into the lives of traditional Roma families in Romania, The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters (O tahtai. Savendar tai seiandar) also doubles as an enthralling anthropological exercise tracking the impact that ancient customs have on the lives of young Roma couples and their future offspring.
For the Roma community – the Cortorai – the tradition of marriage by arrangement is preserved, and at the core of all unions marriages are ancient chalices (golden cups) which are passed on from father to son. These chalices – or ‘tahtai’ – are not seen in everyday life and are kept hidden, but on the occasion of a marriage, the groom’s chalice is given in trust to the bride’s family until the new couple have a son – the ultimate guarantee, as seen by the community, of the endurance of a marriage.
At wedding parties drunken speeches and protestations are made (in fact, drunken speeches feature strongly through the film) about how the young newly-weds will deliver the much-anticipated male child. “If she is barren we will give back the chalice,” says one, while another shouts “we took the dowry because we have priceless chalices.”
Mobile phone photographs of various family chalices are compared, praised and often criticised, but for the older men of the community these often ancient items are vital to their sense of ancestry and position in the community.
At the core of the film are Peli and Nina, a couple from a traditional Roma community who were married by arrangement and are parents to a little girl. However, local custom says that a marital union can only endure if the couple conceives a boy who can later inherit the family chalice.
Peli’s father Costica married Peli’s older sister Bara into a farming family, but because he had already married off two other daughters he avoided paying a dowry for Bara by arranging for Peli to marry Bara’s husband’s sister Nina. When he contracted the exchange he pledged his ‘tahtai’ to Nina’s family.
But the fact that Peli and Nina still don’t have a son is frustrating the often drunken Costica who is obsessed with his chalice, given the lack of a male heir to keep it in the family.
Peli and Nina attend hospital for tests. The doctor initially tells him to give up smoking and energy drinks, but it becomes increasingly clear there are medical issues. Costica, though, is having none of this – he blames Nina for the loss of his chalice and the pair shout back at each other as Nina offers to show him copies of the tests so it is clear who has the fertility issues. At a dinner with other men he drunkenly argues about who is the best bred family, and smashes bottles before a brawl ensues.
As the couple deal with the stress of fertility checks and ultrasound tests – with Peli working as a clown at local markets to try and make money – their respective families are (often drunkenly) busy disputing their rights to the chalice that was pledged when they arranged the couple’s marriage. As the film comes to a close the couple succeed in a pregnancy, but while those around them wonder whether they can deliver a son, will they resort to an abortion, as Bara admits to having done in the past?
Despite a descent towards soap opera-type melodrama at times in terms of pregnancy issues and bickering families, this documentary by Cătălina Tesăr and Dana Bunescu is always watchable as they gain great access and insight into a community that, at least socially, stays very much to themselves. The male obsession with these chalices and the impact it has on new generations is fascinating, and the film itself is peppered with intriguing and complex characters.
Romania, 2022, 83mins
Dirs: Cătălina Tesăr, Dana Bunescu
Production: Erakli Film, Fundatia Arte Vizuale
Producers: Cătălina Tesăr, Dana Bunescu
Scr: Cătălina Tesăr
Cinematography: Catalin Musat, Ileana Szasz, Cătălina Tesăr
Editors: Dana Bunescu, Ciprian Cimpoi
