Three Kilometres to the End of the World

There are many explosive films screening this year at Cannes – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Megalopolis to name two – but one of the most quietly sombre must be Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometres From the End of the World.

Set in a remote village in the Danube Delta Region, it opens on the downbeat figure of Dragoi, with actor Bogdan Dumitrache’s conveying a man whose face is so dragged down by the weight of the world his beard is growing roots. Those concerns are added to when his beloved son 17-year-old son Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea) has been badly beaten. If that wasn’t enough to make Dragoi’s chin go subterranean, what he initially doesn’t know is that Adi has been beaten up for being seen kissing a man. To top it all off, the perpetrators are the sons of a local bigwig (Richard Bovnoczk) who Dragoi owes money to.

In its opening act, Three Kilometres resembles a TV Scandi Noir drama. Dragoi wants those who brutally beat his son brought to justice. The local police officer on the case seems more concerned with bureaucracy and making sure he can bury the case to take early retirement.

The lack of a score and its slow, deliberative and understated pacing is initially a bit offputting. Especially as the crime at the centre of the film is very quickly solved – if not enthusiastically prosecuted. 

Yet it is worth persevering with as in its second and third acts it becomes a meditation on the soul-destroying nature of extremely conservative communities. Not only must Adi deal with the pain of the attack, but the horror of his father and mother – who even engage a sinister priest to tether and “pray the gay away”.

As an intelligent teenager who knows his sexuality and has dreams beyond his village, he faces the reality that those who have loved him – and are decent in many other ways – would utterly stifle his life, and possibly worse.

Parvu’s film does take a while to get going, and may not be to everyone’s tastes – in the cinema at least – as it would fit very well on a contemplative Sunday afternoon in front of the TV. Yet as the drama very slowly unspools it becomes a fascinating exploration of how difficult being gay must be in parts of the world we rarely see on screen.

Mark Worgan

Three Kilometres to the End of the World does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival 2024 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.