My review of Police, Adjective is posted at Image. Here’s how it starts.
I’ve just seen a hell of a film.
Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective—hailed as the latest masterpiece of the Romanian New Wave—is likely to convince American moviegoers that they should avoid the Romanian New Wave.
The movie moves at a snail’s pace. (The most energetic scene in the film is a ponderous conversation in an office.)
It’s repetitive. (We watch the main character, a plain-clothes policeman, stand and shiver for days during his surveillance of an apartment building.)
And it’s visually dispiriting. (On the bleak gray streetscapes of Vasliu, Romania, a splash of colorful graffiti is a welcome sight when you can get it.)
Have I talked you into seeing it yet?
Let me keep trying, because it’s a worth seeing—especially for those interested in language, and how words can become instruments of power.