The Whistlers

It's all over town, aka Bucharest: The corrupt police officer Cristi has become involved with the Spanish mafia- and even got caught. Now undercover investigators are following every move of Cristi: his apartment is bugged and riddled with cameras, so that the beautiful femme fatale Gilda has to pose as Cristi's lover in order to make him an unbeatable offer: Cristi is to travel to La Gomera and learn the islanders' secret whistling language so that he can communicate with the gang of crooks despite being under surveillance. The aim is to free the mattress manufacturer Zsolt from prison. After all, he is the only one who knows where the 30 million from the last coup are hidden. "Everything that is talked about can also be whistled," explains Cristi's teacher on the Canary Island. So abstruse, so good, except that Cristi's lung volume doesn't allow him to learn the language of whistling and the Romanian is first sentenced to swimming lessons in the sea. In "The Whistlers", the English title of Corneliu Porumboiu's quiet gangster comedy, everyone involved plays a double game that soon gets completely out of control. An artfully interwoven narrative unfolds in a highly entertaining way, cleverly subverting the conventions of film noir and winning over the critics in the Cannes competition. Cinephile pleasure guaranteed! "Featuring a femme fatale, a corrupt cop and an eclectic soundtrack that opens with Iggy Pop's 1977 "The Passenger," the Romanian crime drama "The Whistlers" includes elements that could have been plucked from almost any Tarantino-esque bloodbath. But coming from director Corneliu Porumboiu [...] it is a drastic - and exciting - departure from expectations." (Pat Padua, in: The Washington Post) "'La Gomera' is a fascinating interplay between beauty and death, between addictions and brutality. The fact that the film doesn't take itself too seriously makes this quiet gangster comedy a relaxed and very playful cinematic pleasure." (Andreas Fischer, on: prisma.de)