Complex, intellectually rigorous and yet incredibly enjoyable on multiple levels.
The startlingly realised follow-up to the acclaimed 12:08 East of Bucharest – a key work in the recent renaissance of Romanian cinema – Police, Adjective is a brilliant black comedy about language, power and law enforcement. Offering an absurdist yet deadpan meditation on bureaucracy and moral conscience, this Cannes prize-winning film also offers a witty and thoroughly incisive dissection of the policier genre.
Cristi (Dragos Bucur, best known to UK audiences for a brief appearance in Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) is a young undercover cop who undergoes a crisis of conscience when he is pressured to arrest a teenager who, despite numerous warnings, continues to offer hashish to his classmates.
Reluctant to ruin the life of an otherwise decent and law-abiding young man he considers merely irresponsible, Cristi must either allow the arrest to be a burden on his conscience, or face censure by his self-aggrandising, totalitarian superior Anghelache (the astonishing Vlad Ivanov of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days), for whom the word ‘conscience’ has an entirely different meaning.
Inspired by the observations of a friend who disclosed his daily experiences in the local police force, and by a headline-grabbing story involving a brother who informed on his dope-dealing sibling, Corneliu Porumboiu takes a forensic and yet deeply humanist approach to his material. Shot in the director’s hometown of Vaslui, the feel for character, place and landscape is tangible, and as a snapshot of contemporary Romania – with its waste grounds, bureaucrats and air of stagnation – the film is both astute and subtle.
Citing Bresson and Antonioni’s Blow Up as influences, Porumboiu documents the duties of the idealistic Cristi by observing his daily habits and tasks in real time. As we watch the policeman going about his life and fulfilling his professional responsibilities – most of which are mundane, mind-numbingly irrelevant and almost wordless – we slowly come to grasp his moral and philosophical make-up and the extent to which his refusal to bow to apathy, pointless procedure and persecution stands him in marked contrast to his colleagues and superiors.
Poromboiu’s approach extends to the domestic scenes between Cristi and his partner, where everything is discussed and multiple meanings and inferences considered. A conversation about toothpaste is particularly deftly played. In the film’s already much-discussed final sequence between Cristi and Anghelache where, dictionary at hand, they engage in an intense discussion of the meanings that can be attributed to words like ‘morality’, ‘law’ and ‘conscience’, Poromboiu gently steers Police, Adjective to its final comic and intellectual pay-off, and from mere ‘greatness’ into something far more significant.
The follow-up to 12:08 East of Bucharest. One of the key works in recent Romanian cinema.
The writing, direction and performances are first rate. This affirms Porumboiu’s reputation as one of the most exciting talents in European cinema.
Complex, intellectually rigorous and yet incredibly enjoyable on multiple levels.
