Police, Adjective

Written & Directed by: Corneliu Porumboiu
Full credits from IMDb

Many of the films associated with the Romanian New Wave, most notably 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, have been set during the 80s, during the crest of the tyrannical Ceausescu years; to understand what's happening now, those films suggest, we must look back to recent history. But Corneliu Porumboiu's movies go one reflective step farther: they are set in the present, looking back at the past, so we may understand the present. The marvelous 12:08 East of Bucharest examined, 16 years later, the circumstances of the revolution that brought down the Communist government, but it's real purpose was to bemoan the failure of Romania to build a better society from that opportunity. His latest, Police, Adjective (Politist, Adj.), another masterpiece, grapples with a similar idea. It's also about language.

Keep reading this dispatch from the 2009 New York Film Festival at The L Magazine.


Watch the trailer: (no subtitles)