If that doesn't sound appealing, at least you can take solace in the first ninety minutes, which puts Bucar right in the middle of a police procedural, investigating a possible drug ring. I should maybe clarify, though. When I say police procedural, I don't mean the flashy lights, quick zooms, and punny quips of CSI and its ilk. I mean a quite literal procedural: lots of filing, filling out papers and reports, walking between offices, and lots and lots of waiting around, staking out suspects. Oh god, so much waiting around. And drinking tea. And just standing there. For minutes at a time.
This is, without a doubt, the most purposefully boring movie I've ever seen.
And it is most definitely on purpose. Porumboiu has made the decision to focus on the mundane, boring aspects of police work, and to that end, he is successful. He knows where to put the camera, how to focus it on the subject, and the framing is consistently interesting.
Then there's the second thing Poromboiu is interested in, language (the 'adjective' half of the title). This is where the 'reading the dictionary' part comes in. Interjected between the interminable silences of the stakeout, various other characters chide Bucar's vocabulary. Unfortunately, the dialogue about words is used as a blunt instrument... The point comes across that language is misused every day, but instead of heady, intelligent barbs about word usage, it recalls all those stand-up comics who got pissed off at Alanis Morisette for misusing the word ironic. Where a writer like Quentin Tarantino would make these scenes sparkle with wit, Poromboiu chooses to merely present them, and they end up as a didactic mess.
That may be unnecessarily harsh, as the movie is (as mentioned) well filmed, and definitely well acted... With what tiny bits of dialogue the actors are given, they're able to properly convey being the least interesting people of all time. As an artistic exercise, it works. As a movie, less so.
Congratulations, Porumboiu, you got what you wanted: You made a film so mundane, so accurate to real life, that no one would be interested in watching it.
Aka Politist, adj..
