Police, Adjective (2010)

My review of Police, Adjective is posted at Image. Here's how it starts.

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.