A tongue-in-cheek action film by a key representative of the Romanian New Wave and winner of five awards at Cannes, Corneliu Porumboiu.
Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, and Radu Jude were the directors who formed the Romanian New Wave. Their films present post-communist Romanian society in a realistic and understated manner. Porumboiu tells stories of regular people: a clerk who finds treasure (The Treasure), underprivileged teenagers (Police, Adjective), a corrupt but kind-hearted police inspector (The Whistlers). One of the co-producers is director Maren Ade, star of new Berlin cinema. These new waves can be seen in The Whistlers, where absurdity is such that it can only exist real life.
The film’s protagonist, Cristi, is a double-dealing Romanian policeman who is investigating a drug trafficking case and helping the dealers he’s after to launder their illegal income. As they prepare for their ultimate operation, the criminals decide to use the ancient whistling language el silbo to avoid being bugged, communicating with piercing sounds that travel miles across land.
The story unfolds like a 1990s crime thriller with clueless police officers, bloody shootings, and a mysterious love story, but Porumboiu plays with the genre through the use of sound: the predictable pompous dialogues one might expect in a thriller are replaced with melodic whistling imitating birdsong. The entire world of the film bounces between surrealism and hyperrealism and is permeated by sonic incongruity. The film also mixes two very different styles: the carefully planned and glamorous visuals of a Hollywood-style action film and a sharp and minimalist commentary on the images of everyday life in Romania. Although he is one of the top criminals in the country, at home Cristi is met by dreary interiors featuring ever-present wall cabinets, and the shabby police station where he works is unmistakably post-Soviet.
The film will be screened in Romanian, English, and Spanish with Russian subtitles.
The Whistlers
Director Corneliu Porumboiu
Romania, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, 2019. 97 min. 16+