Police, Adjective

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! ► We’re pleased to present a brief return engagement of the latest wonder from the remarkably fertile Romanian new wave. Police, Adjective, a Pacific Cinémathèque pick as one of the best films of the past decade, may be the most unlikely — and most intellectually arresting — policier you’ll ever see. A marvel of irony and dry wit, the film is directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, whose 12:08 East of Bucharest won the Camera d’Or (best first feature) at Cannes in 2006. The story, simple enough, has a small-town undercover cop (Dragos Bucur) assigned to tail a young student suspected of dealing drugs. The assignment is drudgery; the cop concludes the kid isn’t much of a pusher: he’s really just sharing weed with his pals — and Romania’s drug laws are likely to be liberalized soon anyway, so why ruin a kid’s life? His refusal to make an arrest leads to the film’s virtuoso climax: an astonishing back-and-forth between the cop and his dictionary-wielding captain (played by Vlad Ivanov, the abortionist in Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), on the meaning of law, justice, morality and conscience. “Masterly . . . It may be the most riveting movie to ever hinge on matters of semantics” (Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly). “Probably the smartest film of the year” (Vancouver I.F.F.). Colour, Digibeta video, in Romanian with English subtitles. 115 mins.