The Whistlers (2019, Corneliu Porumboiu)

Always a good call to open your movie with “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop. I lost track of the relationships and double-crosses, because I think all the cops are dirty and spying on each other… or rather, it’s not hard to follow while watching, but with the state of everything, I’ve lost track a month later. Story told in named chapters, out of order.

Our main dude is Cristi, with conspirator Gilda and boss Magda. The conspirators’ whistling language (and Cristi’s Old-Mark-Wahlberg look and performance) mostly serves to add notes of absurd humor, so this doesn’t turn into another grim tale of Romanian society/government corruption like Graduation.

Two dirty cops:

Sharp-looking and pleasurable, filled with guns, whistling, hidden cameras, vinyl records, movie theaters – after 12:08 and Metabolism and Infinite Football, I now have no idea what to expect from this guy.