filmalamosa
This film is good... by contrast last night I watched Two Women with Sophia Loren (1960)...a film that had a veritable circus of characters none of which stayed with me more than 15 minutes.I will remember Christi in this film for a long time. Yes it is slow at times especially the scene of them waiting in the office to see Christi's boss. And the dictionary sequence was tedious. But the pay off is you come to really know this character.This is just the sort of film I like to stumble on.. something that stays with you. Distant (A Turkish film) is a similar slow moving film.One actor has to carry this film entirely for almost two hours--it was a flawless performance by him.
jeffluk
Police, adjective. Made me wonder when I first read that title - 'what does it mean?' There's a lot of that in this film, looking for meaning, or truth as some would call it.This is certainly one of the most realistic films I have ever seen, but it is also one of the most boring! Basically, you follow a cop on an investigation. The case itself is very serious. It involves arresting a schoolboy, which means prison time, for the offense of using, and offering drugs to, his school friends. Believe me, this film is serious.The police are also serious. They're diligent. They do things by the book. Well done to Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu for meticulously driving this point home. Sometimes though, they also have a 'conscience'. Sometimes.As painstaking as this film was to sit through, I'm glad I did. There is a reason the director chose this bland portrayal of reality. Beneath the layers of mundane moments, there is a simple and important message. The film makes clever use of language and conversation to get that message across. I wont spoil it here, see it to find out.Good film, but 2/10. The police are no fun. But I will look out for more from Corneliu Porumboiu.
Lee Eisenberg
I recently saw "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days", about a woman's efforts to have an abortion in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania. Now comes "Politist, adj." ("Police, Adjective" in English), Romania's submission to the Academy Awards as Best Foreign Language Film of 2009. This one looks at small-town cop Cristi (Dragos Bucur) assigned to investigate a boy smoking hashish, and how he begins to have misgivings about the ethical ramifications of the task.What strikes me is how much this small town in Romania looks like Russia. Most of the buildings all have a very Eastern Bloc look. To be certain, there are a few scenes where Dragos goes to the boy's house in what appears to be a posher section of the town, with more modern-looking houses. Many of the scenes in the film are long shots, especially the scene where Cristi and his superior use the dictionary to debate the true meaning of conscience and other words.I don't know if I would call this the greatest movie ever made, but I still recommend it. The scene where Cristi eats dinner while his wife has an obnoxious song playing on the computer really shows Cristi's break in terms of conscience, just because of how he reacts.Anyway, I like to get to see cultures that we don't often see, and I really liked this movie. I hope that Romania gives us more like this.
freedfiles
I have an adjective for this film: it starts with "sh" and ends with "itty". I would've preferred watching my hair grow. Absolutely nothing happens in the ENTIRE FILM. I'm not kidding. I don't expect nonstop action in police movies. I do however, expect a semblance of character development and story. After the first hour I'm convinced I fell into a trance. I watched it on pay per view so I'm pretty P.O'd that I couldn't walk out of the theater and demand a refund. Also, I'm sick of those people who say that the average American doesn't have the temperament for foreign films. That may be true in some cases but this movie would bore the heck out of anything with a pulse.
AD
