Police, Adjective (2009)
Review: Pierre Badiola
Release Date: Out Now on DVD
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Cast: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Ion Stoica, Irina Saulescu
I’m a big fan of the crop of 21st century films often referred to as Romanian New Wave; a hard to typify grouping usually influenced or driven by Romania’s post-communist identity crisis. Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjectiv is a 2009 entry to this lineage that is currently out on DVD and deals with the moral dilemmas of a police detective in his pursuit of a drug smoking teenage schoolboy.
While this would typically be classified as a police procedural, Police, Adjectiv is almost the diametric opposite of the average high tempo, action-addled Hollywood genre piece. In the near silent 5 minute opening we observe a footchase so minimally inert it’s as if the filmmakers accidentally left the camera running before a shoot. Of course the pacing is deliberate, and the glacial rhythm may be a hurdle some may never overcome, but those who have a hunger for nuance and enjoy having thinking space will find a compelling core to this enigmatic story.
Dragos Bucur plays Cristi, the Police noun of the story; a somewhat introvert, who fills almost every frame of the film (or patiently strolls into it). He is the very model of a man dedicated to his work, rarely conversing with colleagues in a manner that strays from it and often hostile to people who get in the way of it.
The nature of his case involves following the drug user Victor, and a majority of the film is made up of long stretches in which we observe Cristi as he observes Victor from afar. These sequences are usually shot in a wide frame and are fastidious in establishing the silence and solitariness of policework. It’s a loneliness that he takes home to his wife Anca (Irina Saulescu), who makes him dinner which he often eats alone, much to her dismay.
Most of their conversations center around the function of language; a pivotal theme in the film. ‘Police’ as an adjective hints at the type of work Cristi does, but as the director shows, it’s nothing but a defined routine. Nothing more, nothing less.
When other police procedural films may have a climax resulting in shoot-outs, car chases or explosions, Police Adjectiv ends in a bizarre lecture on dialectics given by Cristi’s commander Anghelache. Here Porumboiu gives us his most audacious test of patience; an extended lesson where Anghelache assumes the role of a teacher while Cristi is reduced back to a schoolboy, reading multiple (yes, multiple) full definitions from a dictionary. Thrilling viewing? For me, absolutely.
Cristi’s conscience and eventual revelations concerning Victor do not fit into the definitions or requirements set by his job, but unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be able to articulate himself well enough do anything about it. This is a lesson Porumboiu is probably trying to get across to the current lost souls of Romania, but by doing so intellectually and not at all viscerally, he may be losing some of them from the get go.
Police, Adjective is Out Now on DVD.
movie rating: 3.5/5
Trailer:
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