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Policier, adjectif

Original title: Politist, adjectiv
  • 2009
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 55m
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
5.4K
YOUR RATING
Policier, adjectif (2009)
Cristi is a policeman who refuses to arrest a young man who offers hash to two of his school mates. "Offering" is punished by the law. Cristi believes that the law will change, he does not want the life of a young man he considers irresponsible to be a burden on his conscience. For his superior the word conscience has an entirely different meaning...
Play trailer2:04
3 Videos
13 Photos
Dark ComedyCrimeDrama

A police officer refuses to arrest a young man for offering drugs to his friends.A police officer refuses to arrest a young man for offering drugs to his friends.A police officer refuses to arrest a young man for offering drugs to his friends.

  • Director
    • Corneliu Porumboiu
  • Writer
    • Corneliu Porumboiu
  • Stars
    • Dragos Bucur
    • Vlad Ivanov
    • Ion Stoica
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.9/10
    5.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Corneliu Porumboiu
    • Writer
      • Corneliu Porumboiu
    • Stars
      • Dragos Bucur
      • Vlad Ivanov
      • Ion Stoica
    • 45User reviews
    • 131Critic reviews
    • 81Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 15 wins & 15 nominations total

    Videos3

    Police, Adjective
    Trailer 2:04
    Police, Adjective
    Police, Adjective: Clip 2
    Clip 2:47
    Police, Adjective: Clip 2
    Police, Adjective: Clip 2
    Clip 2:47
    Police, Adjective: Clip 2
    Police, Adjective: Clip 1
    Clip 1:21
    Police, Adjective: Clip 1

    Photos13

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    Top cast19

    Edit
    Dragos Bucur
    Dragos Bucur
    • Cristi
    Vlad Ivanov
    Vlad Ivanov
    • Anghelache
    Ion Stoica
    • Nelu
    Irina Saulescu
    Irina Saulescu
    • Anca
    Cerasela Trandafir
    • Gina
    Marian Ghenea
    • Prosecutor
    Cosmin Selesi
    • Costi
    Serban Georgevici
    • Sica
    George Remes
    George Remes
    • Vali
    • (as Remes George)
    Adina Dulcu
    • Dana
    Dan Cogalniceanu
    • Gica
    Constantin Dita
    • Officer on Duty
    • (as Costi Dita)
    Alexandru Sabadac
    • Alex
    Anca Diaconu
    • Doina
    Radu Costin
    • Victor
    Viorel Nebunu
    • Alex's Father
    Emanoela Tigla
    • Alex's Mother
    Daniel Bîrsan
    • Barman
    • Director
      • Corneliu Porumboiu
    • Writer
      • Corneliu Porumboiu
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews45

    6.95.4K
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    Featured reviews

    7filmalamosa

    character study

    This film is good... by contrast last night I watched Two Women with Sophia Loren (1960)...a film that had a veritable circus of characters none of which stayed with me more than 15 minutes.

    I will remember Christi in this film for a long time. Yes it is slow at times especially the scene of them waiting in the office to see Christi's boss. And the dictionary sequence was tedious. But the pay off is you come to really know this character.

    This is just the sort of film I like to stumble on.. something that stays with you. Distant (A Turkish film) is a similar slow moving film.

    One actor has to carry this film entirely for almost two hours--it was a flawless performance by him.
    7markedasread

    Police, subjective.

    In "Police, Adjective", Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu devotes himself to the story of a small town cop reluctant of busting a minor for endorsing hashish with friends. Although vague at first, we learn that the civil police Cristi is having an unease conscience about nailing the young man, which may inflict seven years in prison for what Cristi believes to be a petty crime that will – soon enough – be looked upon more liberated. Throughout pic we follow his daily routines and interactions in the downbeat and austere town of Vaslui, including scenes of parodic bureaucracy and laudable lengthy takes.

    "Police, Adjective" is admittedly in many ways difficult to interpret. The first half of the film deals with classic police work (classic as in reality, not classic as in previously depicted on film) including Cristi's pursuit of suspects and filing reports. For an audience used to clustered action flicks, this may seem as tedious and unbearable to endure. From a more objective perspective, I find it somewhat original and daring. This course of the film is harmless, it is on the contrary a certain, yet inevitable cul-de-sac initiated by a mere typo, that pushes it in a slightly too academic stand. On the other hand, it could also be considered an ironic twist when deciding how Cristi's moral dilemmas should be solved.

    One of the more unfortunate aspects of Porumboiu's directing, in particular substantial for "Police, Adjective" but nonetheless equally visible in previous film "12:08 East of Bucharest", is that the (black) humor sometimes may appear so subtle that when juxtaposed to foreigners it can be completely lost (in translation.)

    Watching Porumboiu's battle between an objective and supreme law versus Cristi's subjective conscientious law is evidently quite fascinating, despite being a bit too submissive at times.
    jerkwade

    It grows on you

    I first watched this film about a year ago, and I struggled through it because it truly is one of the slowest and uneventful films you'll ever see, but It has grown on me a lot and isn't a film that you'll forget after seeing. The film deals with themes like guilt, responsibility, choice, patience, with some underlined political themes. Its one thing to conceptualize a film effectively but it's another to execute it correctly, and I think Corneliu Porumboiu did a very honorable job in both those departments. It's one of my favorite films, actually. there's a scene near the end of the film where the main character, one of his colleagues, and his boss are sitting in his office discussing the main character's struggle between the law and his own conscience. This scene goes on for close to 30 minutes if i remember correctly, and it's all done on one shot, with the exception of a few little overlapping shots to view the contents of a dictionary in the main character's hands. I was really impressed by that whole scene. Even if you don't love it, it's definitely worth at least one watch.
    9oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx

    Slow and well-observed police procedural, demands honesty and conscience from the viewer

    This is a film about a policeman and a matter of conscience. There's a circle of three friends, two boys and a girl, one boy has denounced the other boy to the police for supplying marijuana, it appears that this is so he can have the girl to himself. Our policeman, Cristi is being pressed to slap the cuffs on the kid by his superior, the charge is a life-wrecker, seven years in prison for smoking joints at lunch break. Cristi spends the movie trying to avoid this outcome. As he says, it's a foolish law.

    Cristi is pushing against a bureaucracy that simply doesn't care, and ends up looking like a fool when he talks to people who are more educated with him, for example suffering his girlfriend's overanalysis of a ludicrous ballad, or the pseudo-dialectics of his boss, a masterpiece of sophistry. The point is that language or words often constitute another form of aggression, as the Athenians knew, you can win any argument once you have mastered rhetoric. Of course, as soon as anyone raises their voice or gets upset, this is taken as a sign that they've lost the argument, the intellectual warfare, losing having nothing whatsoever to do with being right or wrong of course.

    The film is about conscience, something that totalitarian societies tried to eliminate in favour of the wisdom of the law. Good film although some of the intricacies of the discussions were lost on me not being a Romanian, and unable to follow the thread of Romanian spelling and grammar.

    I actually loved the movie on an aesthetic level, I doubt it was intentional, but I always pick up on dashes of yellow in visual arts, an eccentricity of mine. For example in the street where the kid under surveillance lives, all the utilities pipes that come out onto the street are painted bright yellow, the young girl appears first wearing a bright yellow top under denim, and Cristi uses a yellow lighter and a yellow pen, most of the rest of the colour in the movie is very dull and subdued, I enjoyed these flashes. It's also nice seeing old communist offices, nowadays in the west everything is open plan and new, no-one has offices except the capo di tutti capi. Here there's peeling plaster, old caved in lockers, and a little peace and quiet. Hell I even liked just seeing Cristi sat down eating. Then there's the formal way where letters and plans are just shown on the screen with no background. I like the style of the police reports.

    I would just point out that based on my understanding of the film, the English title is a mistranslation, politist is like the French word policier, which all we can translate as is "police procedural"; another translation is "policeman". The translations are nouns though so I was a little confused as to why it's being referred to as an adjective. Maybe the error is meaningful?
    8lee_eisenberg

    conscience meets adjectives

    I recently saw "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days", about a woman's efforts to have an abortion in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania. Now comes "Politist, adj." ("Police, Adjective" in English), Romania's submission to the Academy Awards as Best Foreign Language Film of 2009. This one looks at small-town cop Cristi (Dragos Bucur) assigned to investigate a boy smoking hashish, and how he begins to have misgivings about the ethical ramifications of the task.

    What strikes me is how much this small town in Romania looks like Russia. Most of the buildings all have a very Eastern Bloc look. To be certain, there are a few scenes where Dragos goes to the boy's house in what appears to be a posher section of the town, with more modern-looking houses. Many of the scenes in the film are long shots, especially the scene where Cristi and his superior use the dictionary to debate the true meaning of conscience and other words.

    I don't know if I would call this the greatest movie ever made, but I still recommend it. The scene where Cristi eats dinner while his wife has an obnoxious song playing on the computer really shows Cristi's break in terms of conscience, just because of how he reacts.

    Anyway, I like to get to see cultures that we don't often see, and I really liked this movie. I hope that Romania gives us more like this.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Romania's official submission to 82nd Academy Award's Foreign Language in 2010.
    • Connections
      Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Extraordinary Measures/Fish Tank/Creation/Police, Adjective/Crazy on the Outside (2010)
    • Soundtracks
      Nu te parasesc iubire
      Performed by Mirabela Dauer

      Arranged by Dan Dimitriu

      Lyrics by Dan Ioan Pantoiu

      Produced by Roton Music

      Played and discussed at Cristi's home

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    FAQ17

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • May 19, 2010 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • Romania
    • Official site
      • Official site
    • Language
      • Romanian
    • Also known as
      • Police, Adjective
    • Filming locations
      • Vaslui, Romania
    • Production companies
      • 42 Km Film
      • Periscop Film
      • Racova
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • €800,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $53,206
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $19,452
      • Dec 27, 2009
    • Gross worldwide
      • $162,974
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 55 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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