The Whistlers – La Gomera (2019)

Directed by: Corneliu Porumboiu | 98 minutes | comedy, crime | Actors: Vlad Ivanov, Catrinel Marlon, Rodica Lazar, Agustí Villaronga, Sabin Tambrea, István Teglas, Cristóbal Pinto, Antonio Buíl, George Pistereanu

Not so long ago, around the turn of the millennium, Romanian cinema was nothing. Hardly any new films were made in the country, let alone that we in the Netherlands would see films made in Romania. In just a few years there has been a complete turnaround. Young, ambitious and talented filmmakers such as Cristian Mungiu, Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu and Catalin Mitulescu were at the forefront of a movement we call the New Romanian Wave; movies like ‘The Death of Mr. Lazarescu’ (2005), ‘The Way I Spent the End of the World’ (2006), ’12:08 East of Bucharest’ (2006) and ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ (2007) were critically acclaimed and awarded with prizes at the renowned film festivals of Cannes and Berlin. Romania suddenly counted as a film country! For many filmmakers, the end of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 is a starting point and the transition Romania went through afterwards a source of inspiration. With a realistic, minimalist approach and a pleasant kind of black humor, the freedoms that the Romanians acquired with the fall of communism are addressed, such as the free market economy and a democratic political system. Those themes, which were close to the experience of the Romanians, were used as springboards for more.

The New Romanian Wave now seems to have passed its peak, but filmmakers such as Mungiu and Porumboiu have developed into all-round filmmakers with a broad ‘repertoire’. And they still win prizes. With ‘The Whistlers’ (2019), Porumboiu made a film that was partly shot outside Romania for the first time. ‘The Whistlers’ is a headstrong crime comedy and an ode to the film noir genre. The main character, police officer Cristi (Vlad Ivanov), was previously seen in Porumboiu’s film ‘Police, Adjective’ (2009), although he was then played by a different actor (Ivanov could be seen in the film, but in a different role ). While he was still idealistic as a young cop, he is now just as corrupted as his colleagues. He provides the local underworld with useful information and is called in by a Spanish mafia boss (Agusti Villaronga). This Paco works with Romanian criminals and has his sights set on a large loot. Cristi leaves for the Canary Island of La Gomera to meet Paco. There he is instructed to learn the local whistling language El Silbo Gomera so that he can communicate over long distances without being noticed by the local law enforcement officers. But no one can be trusted one hundred percent in ‘The Whistlers’. And the fact that Romania is known as one of the most corrupt countries in Europe is subtly underlined here.

Porumboiu has been inspired by crime classics such as ‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1941) and ‘The Big Sleep’ (1946) and performs a classic femme fatale (the beautiful Catrinel Marlon), who, not coincidentally, goes by the name Gilda (indeed , named after the primal femme fatale who played Rita Hayworth in the 1946 film noir of the same name). In addition, he refers not only to his own earlier work, but also to the work of the genre’s master, Alfred Hitchcock (by performing a genuine MacGuffin and with a memorable murder scene in the shower). Despite all that tribute, the tension is not very emphatic; which is eclipsed by the (slightly absurd) humor of mature guys and a lady who tries to whistle a message back and forth with her index finger (so it looks like a gun) in the corner of her mouth. Porumboiu makes the structure unnecessarily complex by cutting the story into several chapters and having each told from a different character. The Romanian filmmaker has never worked with flashbacks before, but does so here, making it even more important to pay extra attention to what happens when. That you sometimes lose the thread is the intention of Porumboiu. That’s how you feel just like Cristi; he also thinks that he has an overview and control, when that is not the case at all. It does invite you to watch the film several times, in order to make more and more ends.