ABSTRACT
It is hard to resist Michael the Brave, protagonist of the eponymous Romanian historical epic Mihai Viteazul/Michael the Brave (Nicolaescu, 1971). Mihai, a seventeenth-century Wallachian prince, played by star actor Amza Pellea, is handsome, earnest, and of course fearless. One cannot help rooting for him as he struggles to achieve his single goal: to unite the three principalities of Wallachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia within a Romania free of foreign oppression. We watch him lead his army through seven lavishly depicted heroic battles and stand his ground in no less heroic diplomatic encounters with European and Ottoman rulers. We feel for him as he sacrifices for the noble cause his desire for the woman he loves, his son, who dies in battle, and eventually his own life. One’s heart soars when Mihai reunites Romania, but it breaks when his triumph proves ephemeral under imperial pressure and he is betrayed at the end of the film.
