Directing: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A

Văcărești Nature Park now sits in the middle of urban Bucharest, 470 acres of wildlife preserve in a spot once earmarked for urban development as a reservoir, filled by the Argeș River via Mihăilești Lake. The fall of communism resulted in development plans being abandoned, and the area was overtaken by nature, becoming the wetland it is today between 1989 and 2016. It was then that after four years of environmental activism, the Romanian government granted it protected area status: the area is a uniquely thriving ecosystem containing nearly a hundred species of birds. Surrounded by concrete embankments from the area’s earliest days, the park—one of the largest urban nature parks in Europe—butts up against a particularly straight stretch the Dâmbovița River. This creates quite the delineation between natural and urban landscapes, a hard border line between wetlands and the bustling city.

This unique local history provides the fascinating backdrop of the superb documentary Acasă, My Home—that title being arguably redundant, as Acasă already translates in Romanian to home. And in this case, “home” is Văcărești Nature Park itself, or rather, what it was before officially being converted into a nature preserve. Google information on the park now, and most pages get into the communist history but don’t say anything about the multiple families living in that area. Acasă, My Home focuses exclusively on one such family: a middle-aged couple and their nine children, all of whom have been raised off the grid there, over the course of eighteen years.

Once the wetlands, also regarded as the Bucharest Nutural Delta, was designated a nature park, much more attention was paid to this family and their effect on the natural environment. Curiously, you’ll find multiple pages online—IMDb, Wikipedia—in which the synopsis states that this family “lived in perfect harmony with nature,” a claim that seems dubious at best. They lived on an island in the wetlands, their makeshift house made of branches surrounded by clutter, pigeons, a pig, and more. They burn their garbage, in one scene causing concern with local authorities about the risk of causing brush fires. I wondered if people writing for those web pages had simply copied it from official promotional materials, but at the very least the film’s official web page does not use that “perfect harmony” language.

To be fair, this family did live on this land for two decades without incident, minding their own business, avoiding what the father is shown in this film referring to “wicked civilization.” It’s an indelible image, seeing these many kinds of varying ages so comfortable in this natural environment, still close enough to live in the shadow of nearby high-rises. Indeed, the first third of the film consists of footage taken before the authorities essentially evict the family from the area. So, we see the kids trained and conditioned in their own closed system, taking boats out into the marshes and catching fish with their hands. In one shot, an older kid is seen swimming through the water with a fish held in his mouth.

Ultimately, though, Acasă, My Home is a portrait of a family struggling to acclimate to the radical change of city living. They are placed in socialized housing, where they have no real concept of house cleaning or hygiene. The kids are placed in school, the older ones learning to read for the first time, breeding some later resentment. I would have liked some more detail about how the kids’ parents came to the decision to live out in the wilderness two decades before; the father states at one point that he was educated, and had a normal job. What deterred him from all that to begin with, in such a severe manner? Lacking those details, I struggled to empathize with him or his wife, and found myself resenting them just as their eldest son did.

The parents made this choice, after all—none of the children did. And if the parents really believed they could keep up this life indefinitely, they were naive indeed. Granted, after nearly two decades, of course they would have grown to assume they could just live like this forever. But, an abrupt end was inevitable, especially living that close to the city—they partly scraped up a living with it. In one of the early scenes, the camera follows one of the older boys walking through the city, knocking on the doors of presumably regular customers and asking if they want to buy their caught fish.

This was all the kids ever knew, and at the very least, young children are very adaptable. The older children, not quite as much. They swim in public fountains not designed for them; they are victims of excessive force by local police when they are caught “poaching” fish from the river in the city. Romanian director Radu Ciorniciuc includes just a few instances of local city residents and authorities alike who treat this family poorly and unfairly, but that is far from the focus of this film. Rather, it’s simply about their struggle to adapt to the gigantic transition from living off the grid to living in the city. The kids go around the city still doing the kinds of things that are just what they have always known.

They are in a largely impossible position, bridging two completely different worlds, neither of which have a comfortable place for them. This would be a great film to shoot a follow-up for, five or ten years down the road. As it stands, Acasă, My Home ends without any resolution to speak of. This is just where they are now, and it sucks. But, it’s also a skillfully presented portrait of their predicament, and absolutely worth seeing.

Overall: A-