The nominations for The UNITER Awards were publicized on February 22. On the same day, in the morning, the nominations for The Gopo Awards, the prizes of the Romanian cinematography, were revealed. Nobody noticed(not even the nominee himself up to a point) that a name appeared on both lists. Modest and hard working the actor that walks on the wire between the theatre and the film, while being impeccable in both arts, is called Vlad Ivanov.
A man, which on stage as well as on the screen, blends unseen and unrecognised with the other actors, while interpreting his role of a “simple citizen” with the same naturalness with which he makes abortions in “4, 3, 2”. Meanness and crime are more in character with him than they are with Mr. Ripley, precisely because he seems above any suspicion. He can be at any time the neighbour from which you borrow oil or he can be Râmaru, since under Vlad Ivanov’ s face anyone can hide.
Ivanov’ s two nominations, for theatre and film, are for roles that regarding typology are light years apart. The doctor form the production The Duel by Cehov, staged by Alexandru Dabija at TNB, is a man whose vice is generosity. Not having another life (although he only asked form the All Mighty God to give him a woman by his side, even a “humpback old woman”) he found mending for his life in helping the others: “I had 7000 roubles and I lent all of them, I even ended up in debt myself in order to help the others”. He cooks for his bachelor friends and he is everywhere. A better man couldn’t exist and it is not fair to be left as a pray to life. His good-heartedness contaminates the others and in the duel, in which two men should have died, two consciences are saved and all these because of the doctor’s almost silly goodness. Vlad Ivanov’ role is secondary and not quite. He is present even when he is not physically on the stage; all the characters act with a kind of flat key because they don’t want to hurt the annoyingly good-hearted doctor. I don’t pretend to know what other people are like, but I left the theatre hall thinking more of the doctor than of the other destinies form Chekhov’s writing. Evidently, Ivanov didn’t have the leading role, nevertheless, I don’t know how he does it, but he always takes the best part.
Let’s move on to the movie: The Adjective Cop in Corneliu Porumboiu’s direction. Ivanov is nominated for the Gopo Awards for his role as an officer, who has a fetish for the Romanian Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Again, he has a secondary part. Oh well, it is a secondary part, a secondary part in deed, but think of how much he brings into the story in just 5 minutes of acting! How he humiliates the idealist cop by offering him the “DEX”! He is cold, caustic and merciless, as Mengele could have been during operations. He is the Devil himself or the sheer bureaucracy. Can one contradict him? What is the place of conscience in the world as long as even the vocabulary overpowers it? The officer, more refined than an old militiaman, having at his disposal the entire arsenal of terror of the old times, beats the old cop at his game. You want conscience, I’ll give you conscience! He is a pure Machiavellian.
For these two nominations, for the theatre and the movie, Vlad Ivanov was nominated this year for two secondary parts more “leading” than those in the registers were. It would be best, after we revolt against the injustice of the various nominations, to take a step beck, to analyse the offer and to appreciate something that is worthy. We should start with Vlad Ivanov.
