The Afternoon of a Torturer

Frant Tandara, former torturer in Romanian communist prisons, is ready to confess his crimes to a journalist and a former victim. The two meet him at the train station in Giurgiu, where Tandara, a man with a shy demeanor, welcomes them by offering them flowers. But the confession presents problems right from the start: the tape recorder does not work, Tandara talks too fast or too slow. Frant tries to begin the tale by talking about the least significant parts of his life: his father in the military, his education, his wandering at the end of the war. The journalist tries to get him with direct questions about his career as a butcher but only gets evasive answers. Tandara’s wife intervenes to ask them to stop torturing her husband, and the afternoon does not go as expected. This is a film about people’s failure to let memory do its job.