Police, Adjective

POLICE, ADJECTIVE is Romania’s official Oscar® selection and winner of a 2009 Cannes Jury Prize (Un Certain Regard) and FIPRESCI international critics’ prize, Corneliu Porumboiu’s whip-smart, dryly funny follow-up to his acclaimed debut 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST (Camera d’Or, 2006) centers on a police officer on a surveillance mission who has a crisis of faith. The film was a critical favorite at the recent New York and Toronto film festivals.
Cristi (Dragos Bucur) is a young undercover cop pressured to arrest a teenager who offers hashish to two of his schoolmates. “Offering” is harshly punished by the law, but Cristi believes that the law will change. Not wanting to ruin the life of a young man he considers merely irresponsible, Cristi must either allow the arrest to be a burden on his conscience, or face censure by his superior (Vlad Ivanov of 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS) for whom the word “conscience” has an entirely different meaning.

Corneliu Porumboiu studied Film Directing at the National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest. His first notable short film, A TRIP TO THE CITY (2003), received the Second Prize at Cinefondation in Cannes and Best Short Movie Prize at Cinema Mediteranéen Film Festival in Montpellier. LIVIU’S DREAM (2003) won the prize for Best Romanian Movie at the Transylvanian Film Festival (2004) and was featured in the official selection at the Telluride Film Festival. In 2005, he entered a residency program at Cannes. In 2006 Porumboiu made his first feature, 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST, which won the Camera d’Or for debut feature. Dragos Bucur studied Acting at the National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest. For five years he has appeared in various plays, working with important Romanian theater directors such as Vlad Mugur and Petre Bokor. His film debut was STUFF AND DOUGH, directed by Cristi Puiu. Bucur worked with Corneliu Porumboiu on two other movies: LIVIU’S DREAM and PHONE LINE TEMPORARLY SUSEPENDED. He also appeared in THE PAPER WILL BE BLUE (2006), by Radu Muntean, and THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU (2005), by Cristi Puiu.

"A brilliant black comedy about language, power and law enforcement as deployed by bureaucrats with a totalitarian song in their hearts. Corneliu Porombiou's new work is my favorite of the films I've seen so far in this year's Cannes Film Fest. Porombiou's forlorn, often hilariously mundane chronicle of a young policeman staking out hashhish-smoking teenagers he feels, in his heart, are not really worth the time and effort, belongs with the peaks of the new Romanian cinema. These include THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU and the Cannes Palme d'Or winner two years ago, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS."
Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune

"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."
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"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."
J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

"More evidence of the remarkable recent renaissance in Romanian cinema."
Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times

"Certainly the smartest film I’ve seen this year. 'Police, Adjective'’s smartness never draws attention to itself; it’s smart without being clever. The richness of Porumboui’s seemingly simple creation allows it to be read as a reverse policier, a social drama, an attenuated art film bordering on parody, a moral tale. The film’s intelligence does not drive itself home until in its last remarkable scenes."
Mark Peranson, Cinemascope Magazine

"An ingenious formal experiment masquerading as a naturalistic docudrama, a quietly hilarious deadpan comedy, and, of all things, a thought-provoking rumination on language. 'Police, Adjective' marks yet another stunning success for the new generation of Romanian filmmakers."
Michael Tully, Hammer to Nail

"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."
Scott Foundas, LA Weekly

"A MASTERPIECE."
Henry Stewart, The L Magazine

"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."
Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe