Romania Travelogue, Part 1

Originally published June 25, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1023

My travel journal, composed at my desk in Bucharest, Romania (for those of you who hate reading travelogues—tough).

May 7/8, 1993 – Three hours before I’m scheduled for fly to Romania—to watch the filming of Trancers IV/V, which I wrote—I still haven’t packed anything. Clothes, food, equipment: Everything is scattered all over the living room floor. It’s nice to know that, no matter how much world traveling I do, I remain as disorganized as ever.

I won’t be doing as much flying as I will waiting. I’m supposed to get to JFK two hours early; I’m changing in Frankfurt and have a three-hour layover, followed by a half-hour layover in Vienna. The actual distance I’m traveling is about 20% further than New York to Los Angeles, but will take fully twice as long.

I get both my heavy-duty suitcases packed and spin the combo locks. I’ve been warned to lock my luggage; theft is apparently not unusual at the Romanian Airport. The locks are hardly uncrackable—a good crowbar will do it—but you look for whatever deterrents you can get. After locking and setting the combos, I then spin both of them to 444, just as an experiment.

The flight from New York to Frankfurt is uneventful. Frankfurt. Just where every Jew dreams of being: a united Germany.

To get to my connecting flight I have to pass through yet another security checkpoint. Even I know better than to joke around with these people; they’re trying to do a vital job, and comments such as “Do plastic explosives register on the metal scanners?” are just going to get you strip-searched. Security check-ins are situations where I raise minimal fuss.

Nevertheless, I balk when a blonde security woman instructs me to put my laptop computer through the X-ray. Very politely, I request—just as I have any number of times in the United States—to have it checked manually (they’d have me turn it on, empty out all the pockets on the bag, etc.).

She points to the sign on the front of the machine and says, “It’s safe. See?”

I politely point out that she’s indicating a sign that says “Filmsafe.” I’ve already put my film through. This is a computer, and the folks at Packard Bell had warned me data could be lost if it went through a security scanner.

“It will be fine,” she says confidently. “Put it through.”

I consider my immediate response of, “If the computer’s ruined, are you going to reimburse me?” and reject it as not being helpful. Instead I point to a sign right next to the Filmsafe sign—the one that reads, “Passenger Can Have Luggage Manually Searched Instead.”

“It says right here I can have it done manually,” I say. “See?”

Icily she refuses to look at the sign. “It will be fine,” she repeats. “Put it through.”

People behind me are getting antsy, and one guard’s hand is straying toward a club.

I put the computer through.

And once it’s put through, then they manually check it. At this point, as they’re doing so, I muster a pointless bit of defiance: I hum, rather loudly, “Der Führer’s Face.” Either they don’t know the song or they just ignore it. I figure they can’t arrest you for humming.

I get down to the departure lounge and sit in the large non-smoking area, prepared to wait the two and a half hours for my plane. They throw me out, because there’s another plane leaving before that and they don’t want me cluttering things up with my presence. They indicate a sort of on-deck circle—which has no non-smoking area and is already wreathed in smoke. I try to tell them cigarette smoke makes me ill. “You can’t wait here,” they tell me again. Apparently, they’re real big on finding one phrase and repeating it. And a German police officer is looking in my direction.

Two hours later, second-hand smoke pouring out of my lungs, I get to board my plane.

The layover in Vienna is short, and this time I don’t even get off the plane. Why look for trouble? Security people come through, confirming that the luggage over my head is mine before moving on. It’s standard procedure on all European flights.

When we land in Romania, I go to buy my visa for entering the country. A woman, not wearing any sort of airport ID, comes over and asks me if I need any help. Her hands are patting my jacket as she does so. But the visa guy has my passport, and my right hand is in my right pants pocket, covering my wallet. She realizes she’s coming up empty and furthermore—in the split second she’s doing it—she senses that I know what she’s doing.

She darts away in a heartbeat. For a moment I think of calling for security, but—what would I say? “Stop her! She offered to help me!”

My luggage comes off the carousel. The numbers are no longer on 444. Furthermore, the latches are open. On both suitcases, someone had tried to open the latches and, when the security lock held tight, spun the combos hoping to get lucky. Didn’t work. Fortunately they didn’t just up and steal the whole suitcase, deciding, I suppose, that it would be too much work.

The folks from Castel Films, the Romanian film company making the film in tandem with Full Moon Entertainment, are there to meet me. They are an attractive black-haired woman, Catalina, and two intrepid young men named Sorin and Michael.

As we drive away from the airport, the road is littered with billboards for Marlboro, Camel, Hewlett Packard, Pepsi. They don’t have McDonalds, for which I’m very pleased.

I’m being put up at the Hotel Triumf. Despite all the literature I’ve read over how abysmal all hotel rooms are in Bucharest, I can sure vouch for this one. If you’re ever in this neck of the woods, and are staying at the Triumf, ask for room 207. You will not be disappointed (unless you’re the type of person who goes into cardiac arrest upon discovering they only have two television stations here—TV stations, I might add, that run music videos and old American TV shows).

I go out to dinner, meeting the majority of the Trancers cast at a Chinese restaurant. The film has been shooting for a week, and they are all in high spirits. They have nothing but glowing things to say about the director, David Nutter, a friend of mine whom I had recommended for the job. Of course, my recommendation had simply gotten him considered; it was the strength of his demo reels that actually got him the assignment. Nevertheless, I feel responsible and am thrilled that things are going so well.

I ask if anyone had any mishaps on their trip in. One actor mentions how both of his suitcases had been gone through, and items were stolen from them. “Were they locked?” I ask.

“No,” he says, “Zipped up, but not locked. Those luggage locks aren’t really hard to break—although I suppose they act as a deterrent.”

“Yeah, I’d say they do,” I reply.

May 9 – I sleep until noon, shedding the few shreds of jet lag I have left, and go down to lunch. I eat with some of the movie folks, including a rep from the production company, Castel Films. I order a Sprite and he frowns. “I have to tell you,” he says in careful English, “that the production company is paying for food—but drinks are your own cost. That soda is very expensive, so be careful you know that when you order it.”

Slightly worried, wondering how much a can of soda could possibly run, I ask him. He tells me the Sprite cost 400 Lei. I do some quick math and realize that comes to about 50¢. I almost order a six-pack, since in New York the average can of soda is a buck. Romania’s definition of “expense” consistently remains far removed from the average American’s, and certainly the average New Yorker’s.

A group of us go out to a concert. Two pianists, Sandu Sandrin and Camelia Pavlenco, are on the stage, playing pieces by Mozart, Schubert, and other dead guys. I’m painfully aware that if you travel in one direction from Bucharest, farther into Romania, you’re into a country filled with bad roads and poverty. Head in the other direction and cross a border, and madmen are slaughtering babies in the name of ethnic cleansing. And here is music, beautifully played, in a concert hall where the ceiling is ringed by a mural depicting the entire history of Romania, and carved dragons are poised overhead. The highs and lows that humanity can aspire to, collapsed into a radius of a few hundred miles.

Madness.

There are private boxes of seats that extend practically onto the stage. The entire hall is only half full, and those seats are empty. Three quarters of the way into the concert, a 10-year-old boy climbs forward and positions himself so that he is out of view of the performers, but in full view of the audience. And he proceeds, with great gusto, to conduct the Debussy piece that the performers are playing. The audience manages to maintain its dignity, and I curse the fact that I don’t have any video camera; if I did, I know I would win first prize on Romania’s Funniest Home Videos.

May 10 – My first day of shooting. I climb into the van that will transport me to the studio and almost have a stroke when an actor, already made up as a hideously deformed radiation victim, climbs in after me.

A brief summary of Trancers IV/V: Time-traveling cop Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) undergoes a mishap while endeavoring to cross time and space. He winds up tossed into a parallel world, full of castles, caves, and forests (In short, it looks just like Romania.) In this world, his old enemies, Trancers (don’t ask), exist as vampiric beings calling themselves “Nobles” and led by the eminently nasty Caliban. (Caliban is played by Clabe Hartley—no, we didn’t get Ron Perlman. But Clabe is a dead ringer for Rutger Hauer, whom I had mentally been picturing when I wrote the part in the first place. So there’s no complaints from me.) There are sword fights, crossbows, rebels, spells, and all sorts of other fun things.

I’ve written half a dozen screenplays up until Trancers, none of which was produced. This is the first time I’ve had the experience of something springing from my head being brought to life by carpenters, actors, and a director.

It’s an amazing experience to walk onto the sound stage. I immediately recognize Caliban’s sanctum from my script description. I also recognize the weapons room, where a major fight between Deth and Caliban’s son, Prospero (Ty Miller from The Young Riders), will be staged.

I spend much of my first day feeling like a fifth wheel.

Everyone there has a job—except me. Technically, my job ended when I handed them a script that said, “Final Draft.” Yet here I am, ready to do anything from moving lights to getting coffee. But, as of this point, there’s simply nothing for me to do. The crew is still getting used to each other.

The crew.

Jeez, it’s like having a movie filmed by United Nations troops.

The director and most of the actors are American. Their Romanian is virtually non-existent. The director of photography (Adolfo Bartolo) and him immediate aides are Italian. Their English is so-so. Most of the rest of the crew is Romanian. Their English is non-existent. There are five translators interpreting various commands.

Most movie sets are carefully controlled chaos under the best of circumstances—and this is far from that. Yet Nutter handles matters with aplomb. The actors adore him, which is dámņ fortunate; having to deal with a rebellious cast in addition to an uncomprehending crew would make just about anyone crack.

If it’s so confusing, why is shooting being done in Romania? Remember the soda for less than half a buck? Everything is non-unionized. Underdeveloped Romania is incredibly cheap. Also something of a struggle. For instance, there’s only one camera, and the director pronounces the equipment “ancient.” For instance, rather than modern cameras mounted on carts with big rubber wheels, our camera is on a metal railroad track that has to be laid down for each new set-up.

Despite all this, matters move along at a brisk pace. Actors are on top of their lines. The set is loose. As the day wears on, Thomerson’s background as stand-up comedian serves everyone well. At one point he hitches his trousers up to just under his armpits, hunches his back, and becomes Sid Deth, little old Jewish detective. The crew is in convulsions (those members of the crew who can understand him, that is).

My single most interesting moment comes when I’m outfitted for a costume. I’m scheduled to do a cameo in a scene filming later that week, set in a torture chamber. I play a non-speaking Noble who tries to stop Jack Deth from breaking free and winds up impaled by a red hot poker. Thomerson says he’s looking forward to it; he’s always wanted to kill a writer.

Peter David, writer of stuff, will be back next week, same BID time, same BID channel.