"Requiem for Dominic" dramatizes the terrible physical, emotional and psychological toll that attends the civil chaos of such great moments in history. It's about the hangover that follows the victory celebrations, about the morning-after when nothing is as simple as it looked the night before.

Mr. Dornhelm was born in Timisoara in 1947 and at the age of 13 emigrated to Austria where he eventually became a film maker. The director, who now lives in California, had been a childhood friend of Paraschiv.

According to the film's production notes, Mr. Dornhelm returned to Romania after Paraschiv's death, determined to understand the circumstances that could have turned his old friend into "the butcher of Timisoara." "Requiem for Dominic" is both about the truth, as Mr. Dornhelm reports it, and the manner in which it is revealed.

Before Mr. Dornhelm left for Timisoara, his brother Peter gave him some advice. "Be careful," he said, "they will tell you a pack of lies. But the opposite of a lie need not be the truth."

This statement defines something of the nature of a movie that does not deal in easy answers, though it clearly has simplified some things for the purposes of drama.