Like few other prison films in memory, Florin Serban's If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle invokes the mental barriers and limitations that grow in even the best of men in the pokey with the same relish as it documents the violence, bureaucratic apathy, and psychological sturm und drang that comes with institutionalism and physical confinement. The setting is a small Romanian detention facility for juveniles where Silviu (George Pistereanu) has been living for years for an unspecified crime. Only two weeks out from the end of his sentence, Silviu receives a visit from his younger brother and is informed that his mother (Clara Voda) intends to take the brother with her to her home in Italy in a few days, despite the fact that Silviu had acted as guardian for a great deal of his brother's life.
This news sets off a series of events that begins with the unnecessary beating of Silviu by the guards for standing too close to the facility's fence line and climaxes with his taking a social work student, Ana (Ada Condeescu), hostage during a class trip to the prison. These two instances are particularly interesting amongst the rest of the director's dramatic asides in that they showcase his most promising idiosyncrasy. Though Serban builds tension slowly in several other scenes, it is in these moments that he incorporates a sense of real-time that makes the dramatic turns in both sequences feel lively and unpredictable, despite the fact that they are both familiar prison-film scenarios.
Indeed, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle comes perhaps the closest among the new crop of Romanian New Wave films to dabbling in conventional narrative structure. Following his run-in with the guards at the fence, Silviu goes about the motions of obtaining a cell phone and faces various confrontations with fellow inmates over debts and his pending release; it is even suggested that one of the inmates forced him to perform fellatio, though the script, which Serban co-wrote with Catalin Mitulescu, wisely keeps the matter ambiguous. Despite some well-built moments of minor suspense with these encounters, the film hits its rousing hilt during a confrontation between Silviu and his mother at the prison where the matriarch's history of serial abandonment and selfish attention-mongering is revealed.
Silviu's immense anger is also evident, though it gets its most impressive display when he brutally beats a guard, boards himself up in the interview room with Ada, and demands a conference with his mother and a coffee-bar date with his hostage. Pistereanu, a non-professional, handles this material with a masterful, brooding physicality and big, wild eyes that give a potent sexual energy to his scenes with the equally striking Condeescu, another non-professional performer. His performance keeps things on a high-wire even when the film slows down and becomes a bit ridiculous in its final quarter.
Serban's aesthetic has the sheen of a Sidney Lumet picture as imagined by R.W. Fassbinder, but the cinematography, courtesy of Marius Panduru (12:08 East of Bucharest, Police Adjective), bears an instantly noticeable resemblance to the work of the Dardenne brothers. And yet, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle ultimately lacks the focus and ambition of the works that have influenced it and, not for nothing, the recent work that has been coming out of Romania. Like the aforementioned 12:08 and Christi Puiu's Stuff and Dough, If I Want to Whistle shows a great deal of promise, but unlike those movies, I did not leave the film still mystified and intoxicated by its imagery and ideas. That said, one film that manages to be simply good amongst a glut of disputable masterpieces is nothing to sniff at.
Aka Eu cand vreau sa fluier, fluier.
This news sets off a series of events that begins with the unnecessary beating of Silviu by the guards for standing too close to the facility's fence line and climaxes with his taking a social work student, Ana (Ada Condeescu), hostage during a class trip to the prison. These two instances are particularly interesting amongst the rest of the director's dramatic asides in that they showcase his most promising idiosyncrasy. Though Serban builds tension slowly in several other scenes, it is in these moments that he incorporates a sense of real-time that makes the dramatic turns in both sequences feel lively and unpredictable, despite the fact that they are both familiar prison-film scenarios.
Indeed, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle comes perhaps the closest among the new crop of Romanian New Wave films to dabbling in conventional narrative structure. Following his run-in with the guards at the fence, Silviu goes about the motions of obtaining a cell phone and faces various confrontations with fellow inmates over debts and his pending release; it is even suggested that one of the inmates forced him to perform fellatio, though the script, which Serban co-wrote with Catalin Mitulescu, wisely keeps the matter ambiguous. Despite some well-built moments of minor suspense with these encounters, the film hits its rousing hilt during a confrontation between Silviu and his mother at the prison where the matriarch's history of serial abandonment and selfish attention-mongering is revealed.
Silviu's immense anger is also evident, though it gets its most impressive display when he brutally beats a guard, boards himself up in the interview room with Ada, and demands a conference with his mother and a coffee-bar date with his hostage. Pistereanu, a non-professional, handles this material with a masterful, brooding physicality and big, wild eyes that give a potent sexual energy to his scenes with the equally striking Condeescu, another non-professional performer. His performance keeps things on a high-wire even when the film slows down and becomes a bit ridiculous in its final quarter.
Serban's aesthetic has the sheen of a Sidney Lumet picture as imagined by R.W. Fassbinder, but the cinematography, courtesy of Marius Panduru (12:08 East of Bucharest, Police Adjective), bears an instantly noticeable resemblance to the work of the Dardenne brothers. And yet, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle ultimately lacks the focus and ambition of the works that have influenced it and, not for nothing, the recent work that has been coming out of Romania. Like the aforementioned 12:08 and Christi Puiu's Stuff and Dough, If I Want to Whistle shows a great deal of promise, but unlike those movies, I did not leave the film still mystified and intoxicated by its imagery and ideas. That said, one film that manages to be simply good amongst a glut of disputable masterpieces is nothing to sniff at.
Aka Eu cand vreau sa fluier, fluier.
