Friday 17 Sep 2010

18.00, Arts Picturehouse, 38-39 St Andrew’s Street Cambridge CB2 3AR; Box Ofice: 0871 902 5720

POLICE, ADJECTIVE
Romania, 2009, 113 mins. Directed by Corneliu Porumboiu. Cast: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Irina Saulescu, Ion Stoica, Marian Ghenea

The playful POLICE, ADJECTIVE presents a slow and steady story of surveillance and sesquipedalias* set in the Romanian town of Vaslui. A martyr to the bureaucratic pettiness of low-level police administration, unassuming undercover cop Cristi (Bucur) is assigned to investigate a suspected schoolboy hash dealer. Unable to countenance the incarceration of a harmless young boy, Cristi battles against his officious superiors with his own brand of pedantry. Verbal sparring and subtle performances bring colour and shape to the grey inertia of Cristi’s bleak little world. Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, the slow burning POLICE, ADJECTIVE brings conscience to the crime scene, and makes an art form of attention to detail.

* sesquipedalian = a very long word