Odd how we’ve never watch a single Romanian film but here we have two in relatively short order. This one actually uses multiple different languages and attempts to be a kind of international thriller. Unfortunately it relies entirely on the central conceit of whistling as a language and is not otherwise a film to be taken very seriously. I do note it evinces a very cynical morality that says interesting things about Romanian society.

Cristi is one of the police detectives investigating suspected drug money launderer Zsolt. The criminal’s girlfriend Gilda approaches him to propose a plan to free Zsolt and as Cristi warns her that he is under extensive surveillance himself, she pretends to be a prostitute. The plan involves him travelling to La Gomera of the Canary Islands to learn their whistling language so that they can communicate without fear of police listening in. Cristi’s superior, the prosecutor Magda, is already suspicious of him however, especially after he hides the money he was given in his mother’s house and his mother donates it to the church. Thus he is already a infiltrator for the police when he goes to the Canary Islands. The criminals however have troubles for their own when their boss Paco learns that it is Gilda who sent a tip to the police and that she and Zsolt planned to steal and run away with the money. So from their perspective, the plan changes from rescuing Zsolt to recovering the money he hid and then killing him.

The plot really isn’t that convoluted but the film muddies things by presenting the scenes out of order and leaves somewhat open whether or not Cristi’s superiors are themselves crooked as he tries to bribe Magda in turn. Then there’s how Vlad Ivanov as Cristi has a poker face which gives nothing away. This works for some character types but it’s awkward here as we know so little of his motivations. Is he truly after money? How are we to believe that he genuinely develops feelings for Gilda when they barely have any scenes together after the initial contact? What was he doing trying to get out of the safehouse in La Gomera at night? None of this is properly addressed, It’s a safe bet that the script was written around the central conceit of criminals using the whistling language. But it seems to me that in the process of figuring out a plot that would make use of it, they ended up invalidating it completely as the police knows about the plan from the beginning anyway. It’s just silly and needlessly complicated, especially given the simplicity of the messages that Cristi has to pass on.

The good parts of the film are that the scenic shots of La Gomera are nice to look at and the language lessons Cristi receives are genuinely fascinating. It is also striking how the film implies that everyone on every level of Romanian society is corrupted to some extent and that pervasive surveillance by the authorities, up to and including government controlled cameras in your bedroom, is totally normal. There’s no moral condemnation of any of the characters being criminals, except for Cristi’s mother berating him, and Cristi just seems somewhat nonplussed at how behind the times she is. It’s a truly cynical take on society. Unfortunately like much else in the film, this never really goes anywhere and it is clear that this film intends to be slick rather than insightful. I’ve read critics saying that this is like the Romanian version of the Coen brothers but I don’t get that at all. It’s all just so insouciantly put together and shallow. For example it doesn’t make sense in the slightest how Cristi is supposed to explain his extended absence to the Canary Islands in the middle of an investigation.

I suppose the attempt to make an international thriller like this is commendable in of itself, even including a scene in Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay, but in the end this is just not that good a film.