Police, Adjective

This new Romanian film (from Corneliu Porumboiu) utterly, utterly excellent.
We start off with long long shots, and that is exactly how it continues. Apart from one character it doesn't really exaplin who is who. This takes a while for the viewer to work out where they are, what they are watching, how to adject ourselves to this. So we start off a little distracted, a little too easy to let the mind wander. But then we come to know the film, and we are drawn in until it grips with beauty, with power.
The long long static shots reming one of 'Hidden', if anything, but used rather differently. One has to learn to love the image, love the compositions, love the image (again). Watching a whole meal. We then come to understand the rythms of the dialogue, it is in a way funny, but also particulaly beautiful. It has a profound slowness, a profound contemplation on the subject.
This is what the themes of the film are; how infinity ends up into circles, into a kind of non-linear miasma. The space inhabited is a circular one. Then we have the definition seen. Brought out by the earlier repitions, this scene encapsulates how the logic itself of a discredited situation leads one to a moral avenue. As though life, and the place itself, lead one to the avenues of horrors.
Place is depicted through the characters, not under or over done. The lead actor is simply excellent, naturalistic and convincing.
This is a truly incredible, powerful film, with a moral dilemma but never overpowered by it. Indeed, it shows the banality of morality. It is a kick in the gut, as well as a slow experience of mourning for a culture that was never there. One of the best new releases of the year.