I'm writing this review in response to some nationalistic hyperbole here, just to remind you folks out there what was happening in Romania at the time this film was made.
From the mid-70s, the Ceaușescu regime nationalized all ethnic minority centers. Villages and cities were renamed, non-Romanian schools and businesses closed, non-Romanian employees fired amidst an ever tightening noose of state oppression. In response to this, West Germany paid the government a "head prize" of 10000 Deutschmarks to allow the German population to emigrate. Ceaușescu saw this as incentive to step up the persecution, thus almost the entire German minority (and many Hungarians) left.
The film makes reference to this when the Hungarian nobility is portrayed as treacherous (which indeed it was), and the German merchants as greedy (which is debatable - they didn't trade slaves, for example). There is a scene when Vlad levies a heavy tax on them, which in the context of 1979 could be understood as legitimization of asset confiscation. Also Vlad holds many speeches about the need for firm leadership, which in his time was certainly true, but the wording obviously refers to the "condutatorul" (meaning Führer) Ceaușescu.
Apart from these obvious reverences the film makers had to make to the dictator, this is actually a fairly good portrayal of the historical Vlad, even though his fantastic life story would certainly deserve a huge Hollywood production - it is so much more interesting than that novel concocted by that sexually frustrated, opium-addicted Irishman.
From the mid-70s, the Ceaușescu regime nationalized all ethnic minority centers. Villages and cities were renamed, non-Romanian schools and businesses closed, non-Romanian employees fired amidst an ever tightening noose of state oppression. In response to this, West Germany paid the government a "head prize" of 10000 Deutschmarks to allow the German population to emigrate. Ceaușescu saw this as incentive to step up the persecution, thus almost the entire German minority (and many Hungarians) left.
The film makes reference to this when the Hungarian nobility is portrayed as treacherous (which indeed it was), and the German merchants as greedy (which is debatable - they didn't trade slaves, for example). There is a scene when Vlad levies a heavy tax on them, which in the context of 1979 could be understood as legitimization of asset confiscation. Also Vlad holds many speeches about the need for firm leadership, which in his time was certainly true, but the wording obviously refers to the "condutatorul" (meaning Führer) Ceaușescu.
Apart from these obvious reverences the film makers had to make to the dictator, this is actually a fairly good portrayal of the historical Vlad, even though his fantastic life story would certainly deserve a huge Hollywood production - it is so much more interesting than that novel concocted by that sexually frustrated, opium-addicted Irishman.