“The Whistlers”– Movie Review

This past weekend at the 57th New York Film Festival, I attended the New York Premiere of “The Whistlers”, a new Romanian crime drama.

Synopsis

When a dirty cop tries to get a corrupt businessman out of prison, will he be able to learn an unusual communication method in order to do so?

Story

When Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) arrives in The Canary Islands, he has no idea what he’s in for on his current mission:  he must get Zsolt out of prison back in his home of Romania. Zsolt ostensibly runs a mattress factory, but in reality, his business is used to launder drug money from Venezuela.  One of the mattresses has 30 million euros buried in it and many people are desperate to get their hands on that mattress – or more specifically, the money on the inside. Paco is one such person; he’s a mobster from Mexico to whom the money was initially intended to be funneled.  He’s now concerned that Zsolt is holding out on him – trying to keep the money for himself. Additionally, other people may get their hands on this valuable mattress before Paco himself does.

Gilda greets Cristi upon his arrival.  These two have quite a past with each other.  All of that is over now – at least for the time being.  She informs him that in order to successfully carry out this mission, he must learn a secret way of communication that is specific to a tribe there on The Canary Islands:  whistling. Cristi needs to get up to speed on this whistling language as soon as possible. The reason why is simple: they need a “coded” language in which to communicate with each other so that no one – especially the police – will understand what they’re up to.  But with a woman like Gilda, there’s always more than meets the eye.  

While there may be an overall plan to get Paco his money, Gilda has her own plan.  She’s going to run off with the mattress herself and live off its contents. Cristi is included as part of her scheme. This is a particularly dangerous plan when you’re dealing with someone like Paco; if you take his money, he’s going to kill you.  Furthermore, the police are aware of this situation and want to prevent both Zsolt and Paco from getting their hands on the money – they have assigned Cristi to this case, not knowing that he’s also working with Gilda and others. Can Gilda and Cristi escape with the mattress or will Paco’s team get to them first?               

Review

“The Whistlers” is difficult to follow for a number of reasons.  One has to do with the fact that it has a very complicated structure; the usage of flashbacks can be a bit confusing as well because it’s easy to mix up the time frame when a particular action took place.  The plot is rather difficult to distinguish; you would practically need a whiteboard with diagrams in order to explain it and even then it might be confusing. Also, there are many characters introduced throughout and it can be quite the challenge to keep track of them; in addition, a number of them wind up being double/triple/quadruple-crossed.  

For some, this may be part of the charm of the movie.  If you want the story told in a way that is easier to comprehend and not terribly convoluted, then “The Whistlers” may not be for you.  Too bad. So many other aspects of the film are quite promising. First off, the premise is compelling; set in the Canary Islands, the story of The Whistlers is largely unknown to most people.  Second, there’s a very unusual but nevertheless satisfying ending that takes place in Singapore’s Gardens By The Bay. In between, however, there are too many other actions that have to be processed by the viewer so as to render the film almost passive aggressive.        

Following the screening, there was an interview with director Corneliu Porumboiu.  Porumboiu originally got the idea for “The Whistlers” about a decade ago; on a vacation in France after finishing an earlier film, he saw a documentary on television about The Whistlers on the Canary Islands.  The story stuck with him for quite a while as he tried to figure out how to make a movie about this. In preparation, he watched many classic noir films to get pointers on how to tell this story; he specifically cited “The Big Sleep” and “Double Indemnity” among many others.  The cast had to learn this whistling technique; to this end, they got a teacher from the islands to visit them in Bucharest for two weeks – after that, the remaining lessons were conducted via Skype.