15/05/2009

Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu’s second film, Police, Adjective [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Corneliu Porumboiu
film profile], premiered today in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Police, Adjective again showcases the sideways approach to the main narrative and drily absurd style previously seen in Porumboiu’s Camera d’Or winner 12:08 East of Bucharest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Corneliu Porumboiu
interview: Daniel Burlac
film profile]. It is clear from his second film that the director has grown, rightly understanding that this story needed even more emphasis on the dreariness and emptiness of his hometown Vaslui (also the setting of 12:08), and including long stretches in which nothing much happens but that are crucial for the film’s overall impact.

Porumboiu takes his tale of a police investigation of a minor smoking and perhaps selling pot to its rightfully absurd conclusion in an audacious long take. It features a game of semantic hide-and-seek in which the police inspector in charge of the investigation (Dragos Bucur, Boogie [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dragos Vîlcu
interview: Radu Muntean
film profile]) faces off against his boss (Vlad Ivanov, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Oleg Mutu
film profile]).

A short, unsettling coda wraps up the entire film with the protagonist’s practical application of the reductio ad absurdum principle, effectively cementing Porumboiu’s status as one of the strongest contemporary Romanian or indeed European directors working today.

Porumboiu produced the film through his production company 42 Km Film, with the support of Racova and Raza Studio, and with financial backing from HBO Romania. International sales are handled by France’s Coach 14.

The film will be released in Romania in June via Independenta Film .