In the Press
May-October 2009
"Police, Adjective" in the U.S. press
"Police, Adjective" in the U.S. press
- Variety, April 23, 2009: Police, Adjective, by Jay Weissberg
“New Romanian cinema gains further impetus with Corneliu Porumboiu's cerebral non-thriller "Police, Adjective." (...) His follow-up, about a contempo cop's unwilling surveillance of a teen suspected of selling pot, takes things further, aiming a laser-sharp intellect and a deeply considered understanding of language at themes of authority and the residue of totalitarianism. (…) Porumboiu is one of the few helmers working today who so completely understands both the power of language and the power of visuals. He brings this intelligence to bear on the corrupting influence of a system that exerted control for generations, arguing that such systems die very hard deaths.” - The New York Times, May 17, 2009: Where Art Trumps Industry, by Manohla Dargis
“Equally impressive if far more visually streamlined is “Police, Adjective,” from the Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu. Further proof of the strength of the Romanian New Wave, this deadpan meditation on authority and moral conscience is playing out of the main competition, despite being one of the finest films at this year’s festival.” - The Village Voice, May 18, 2009: Graphic, Controversial, Yucky: Lars von Trier's Antichrist Can't Save This Year's Cannes, by J. Hoberman
"A small masterpiece. Corneliu Porombiou has confounded the sophomore jinx with an absurdist comedy that is even drier, deeper, and more closely observed than his estimable debut. 'Police, Adjective' has something of the deadpan theatricality that characterized early Jim Jarmusch.” -
The Boston Globe, May 19, 2009: Cannes ‘09 Day 7: Almodovar, Adjective, by Wesley Morris
“The cop movie you thought you were watching turns into an altogether different kind of investigation, one about function versus philosophy and that hinges on the reading of a dictionary. I’m not sure the definition of a word has ever been as simultaneously suspenseful and cruelly funny as it is here. With Porumboiu, discourse breaks the film wide open and lifts it to greatness.” - LA Weekly, May 20, 2009: Dreaming in Film: At Cannes and Its Renegade Festivals, by Scott Foundas
“Easily the best film in Cannes not screening in the main competition… It is nothing less than letters and laws — of both the legal and grammatical variety — that are the keys to Porumboiu’s wonderfully pliable, allegorical theme. For much of the running time, Porumboiu gives us a series of long, nearly wordless scenes of the cop pursuing his suspect, which turn out to be the carefully laid groundwork for a show-stopping final act of Stoppardian verbosity, as the cop and his superior engage in a verbal tennis match about conscience, personal morality and the true meanings of words.” - The New York Times, September 24, 2009: The Serious Regard for Cinema, by Manohla Dargis
“a perfectly timed, slow-to-boil absurdist comedy. (…) politics informs “Police, Adjective,” though with more tonal and visual restraint. The story centers on a young cop whose ridiculous undercover assignment — to pin a drug charge on some teenagers — slyly metamorphoses into an examination of bureaucracy as a symptom of totalitarianism. In the film’s masterly climax a dictionary — define “conscience” says the cop’s boss — is transformed into a weapon of control.”
- TimeOut New York, September 24-30, 2009: New York Film Festival 2009, by David Fear
“Some advice to viewers of the sophomore feature from Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest): Be patient. (…) Compared with the brilliant, bone-dry humor of his previous film, the structuralist musings of Police, Adjective’s first half will start to test your tolerance. But the Romanian New Waver is calmly, methodically laying the foundation for an argument about how language and morality play into authority—or more specifically, its abuses. Then comes the movie’s Rohmeresque showstopper: a 20-minute sequence in which the cop and his stoic superior (Vlad Ivanov) debate the definition of the word conscience. It’s just two men, a rundown office and a dictionary, but the sequence revises everything that’s happened before it—and justifies the wait a hundredfold. Genius.” - New York Times, December 23, 2009: Jiggers: Here Comes the Dictionary, by A.O. Scott
"Police, Adjective tells a small story well. At the level of plot, it is consistently engaging, and the psychology of the ambivalent detective, a staple of film noir, is given a new twist in the character of Cristi. But the more closely you look, the more you see: a movie about a marriage, about a career in crisis, about a society riven by unstated class antagonisms and hobbled by ancient authoritarian habits. So much in this meticulous and moving film is between the lines, and almost nothing is by the book." - Village Voice, December 23, 2009: Police, Adjective Mines Gulf between Cop and Human Values, by J. Hoberman
"Corneliu Porumboiu's remarkably self-effacing and highly intelligent comedy Police, Adjective—a philosophical crime film that, as the investigation of an investigation, substitutes irony for suspense. (...) With its series of apparently absurd routines, shot (Romanian-style) in long takes and real-time, Police, Adjective has something of the deadpan theatricality of early Jim Jarmush not only in its framing, but its dialogue: Words are carefully parsed; every conversation has its own logic." - National Public Radio, December 23, 2010: Heard on All Things Considered, Melissa Block, host
"A young detective struggles with whether or not to arrest three students who've been smoking hashish. He believes their lives will be ruined for a minor crime. The title of the movie is written "Police, Adjective," and director Corneliu Porumboiu says the film's a discourse on language and the detective's search for the meaning of such words as conscience, moral and law." - Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2009: Film Review:Police, Adjective, by Tribune Newspapers Critic
"The key scene is played brilliantly, with Vlad Ivanov (the abortionist in "4 Months") as the superior officer and Dargos Bucur as Cristi, whose slowly dawning conscience lands him in hot water. You will never think about the definitions of the words "law" and "conscience" the same way after hearing Ivanov assert his authority by way of a dictionary. Not many pictures can give an audience a sinking feeling of bureaucratic oppression while being funny. (A certain kind of funny, that is.) This one can, and does. It's small but meticulous and just about flawless." - Los Angeles Times, December 23, 2009: Police, Adjective, by Kenneth Turan
"Police, Adjective confounds expectations. It's neither a conventional crime film nor a police drama. Rather it's a gently subversive intellectual exercise, a philosophical jest wrapped in police-procedural clothing that examines not just the scene of the crime but also the power of language and the use and abuse of words." - Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2009: Interview with Corneliu Porumboiu, by Kenji Fujishima
"Everything you need to know about “Police, Adjective,” the second feature film from Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, is contained in its title. On its rather dreary surface, the movie is a police procedural involving a run-of-the-mill drug case. But the standard genre elements mask Porumboiu’s larger, more fascinating theme: the ways in which authorities use semantics as a tool of power." - Film Maker, December 23, 2009: Interview with Corneliu Porumboiu, by Brandon Harris
"Cornelieu Porumboiu’s absurd anti-policier Police, Adjective, a hit at last fall's New York Film Festival, has pushed the Romanian director into the forefront of a young group of Romanian filmmakers who have in the past four years taken the world of