The Hollywood Interview with Corneliu Porumboiu, director of POLICE, ADJECTIVE

(Dragos Bucur, above, as Cristi in a scene from Police, Adjective, and Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, below.)

By Terry Keefe

It's a world apart from "CSI." Cristi, the young Romanian police detective played by Drago Bucur in director Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective (Politist, adj.), is on a case far removed from the hip procedural universe of cool lighting, clothes, and shocking plot twists that we've come to know on network television. Instead, the director puts us right in the middle of low-level surveillance work in Romania, and lets us feel the ennui of this daily grind. Cristi inhabits a world of paperwork and bureaucracy, and the way he fills out an official form, and the words that he uses to do so, can make a big difference in the life of the person he is writing about. The plot twists in Police, Adjective come not from action set pieces, but from which boxes Cristi checks on his report. If this sounds a bit on the mundane side, it occasionally is, and deliberately so, but the final effect is to imbue us with what it is like to do Cristi's job, day after day, and later on, Porumboiu skillfully uses the audience's new understanding of the rote nature of Cristi's life to frame questions about conscience, and what that word means in a world of bureaucracy. There is one scene in which the camera slowly scrolls down Cristi's written report as he reads it in voice-over, breaking every mantra of cinema, in that you're supposed to always show don't tell, and if you tell, tell with excitement. Obviously no amateur, Porumboiu knows what he is doing here: very effectively bringing us into his lead character's head.

Assigned to trail a teenager suspected of "offering" hashish to some other teenagers, Cristi spends his days following this teenager around town, as this act of offering is considered a crime. Cristi also does seemingly endless paperwork, filling out a lengthy report at the end of each day, and he starts to believe that the teenager is not the guilty party. The genre take on this story would have Cristi now uncover a much bigger crime in his efforts to help the teenager, and find himself and the teen on the run, or something along those lines. But Porumboiu crosses those expectations by veering the story into an examination of the intersection of semantics and reality, as Cristi attempts to convince his superior officer played by Vlad Ivanov, the abortionist in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, that they shouldn't pursue the case against the teenager. Soon, the law against "offering" hashish is likely to be changed, and by the end of the film, Cristi believes that he should drop the case against the teenager as well. But in the world of strict procedure that Porumboiu has established over the course of the film, such an action may have no place, moral or no.

Porumboiu won the Cannes Jury Prize (Un Certain Regard) this past year for Police, Adjective, and previously won the Camera d'Or in 2006 for his debut feature, 12:08 East of Bucharest. Police, Adjective is Romania's official Oscar selection this year, and has been lauded by many film writers as the next milestone in what has been dubbed the "Romanian New Wave," a term that started to gain favor after the success of Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

(Please note that there are some plot spoilers in the course of this interview.)

HOLLYWOOD INTERVIEW: The use of long shots, in terms of running time, has become a trademark of yours. Is this something you plan to continue with on your future projects?

Corneliu Porumboiu: Yeah, I think it’s something I really like and is a part of my cinema. I do like that type of shooting.

How many takes were typically done on some of the long shots in Police, Adjective?

I shot between 8-20 takes. Some scenes, 22-25. It’s about the actors mainly.

The use of so many long shots must be challenging in post-production, in that you don’t have anything to cut away to. Do you shoot coverage of insert shots and reactions for safety, so that you have something to cut to, if necessary?

Yeah, but I do rehearse very well. So, when it’s about dialogue, and the relation between characters…I rehearse a lot. And so, in the shooting, I just have to adjust things, usually. I prepare very well.

Do you try these long shots in different ways, from take-to take?

It was all the time similar, from take to take. I like it very precise.

Was Stranger Than Paradise an influence on Police, Adjective? It comes to mind immediately for me as an influence, although perhaps I’m wrong.

[laughs] No, no. I love that film.

Filmmaking legend has it that the editing on Stranger Than Paradise was easy and very quick, because it was just a matter of stringing together these long takes. Your film doesn’t have quite as few cuts as Jarmusch’s debut, but did you find your post-production was also relatively quick?

Not so much. I think I spent a maximum of one month in the editing room. Not that long, either, though. I rewatched all the scenes, and chose all the takes, and after that, it wasn't that hard.

(Dragos Bucur, above, in Police, Adjective.)

The camera style of the film has a loose, sometimes surveillance-style feel but is also very precise in hitting its marks. To what degree did you allow your DP freedom to say, go handheld, and improvise, and to what degree were you very locked down in terms of how it was shot?

I let the DP follow the actors. I’m interested in having the camera follow the characters, and for the actors to be confident, no? In these kind of long scenes. Sometimes the actors are very precise, and a pose is a little bit too much. So, I gave the DP the possibility to follow them a little bit.

Did you spent any time watching actual police surveillances as research?

Yeah, yeah, I think I made some very good documentation for the film. All the procedurals, the paper and what it is supposed to do, all the departments he interacts with. Because, in way I believe that the truth of a character is in the little things. As a director, you have two things you have to give the actors: the biography, and what he’s doing in that one day. This is the identity of the character, and I wanted to know the continuity of his day.

Is the issue of the legality of hashish in Romania something that was important to you to discuss in this film, or did it mainly function as a plot point?

It’s a plot point. Because after that, it could be many things. It was a starting point.

Let’s talk about the ending and his reaction. Did you think about Cristi having a more emotional reaction and walking out, or did you always have him take a more resigned approach to what ultimately happens?

No, in the second draft, he resigns at the front desk. Every time when I rewrite the script, I start from the beginning. For two months, I don’t touch the script, and I start from the beginning. Sometimes, you come up with the same lines, though, which is funny.

There’s a lot of comedy in the script, which subtly and slowly emerges within what appears to be a straight drama at first. How much effort did you put into bringing that comedic layer out?

No effort [laughs].

Were you surprised when it emerged then?

No, because I’m like that. I have this type of humor in daily life [laughs]. It’s sort of how I look at the world.

Would it be a dark sense of humor, I’m guessing?

[laughs] I think I’m quite cynical.

A theme that comes out in the film is the idea of Cristi being stuck between the old world and the new one. Was that something you gave much thought to?

Of course. After I finished the editing, I changed the title. The original title was The Intermediary. I was interested in showing this guy who is between two worlds, and you see that even in the grammar of the world is changing. That was the starting point.

You made a choice that was defiantly non-cinematical for a long scene, when he writes the report and we scroll down it with voice-over. Were you concerned that this would work?

Yeah, I was a little bit concerned at first. But, on the other hand, I thought that he was making a presentation, and I thought it was important that you see what he is doing in one day, and then what he says at the end of the day, on the paper. Each day ends with a report and I think it was important to show. It was also characterization, because each day he’s writing, very methodical, very exact. Every day he’s writing a report like that. I think that if you write this every day, what you write is, in a sense, you. The presentation he makes every day changes his point of view.

Did you give any thought as to where the character goes five years from now? Does he become a cynical cop?

[laughs] I was talking to Vlad Ivanov about his role [as the police chief] and said, “You have this dynamic with him [Cristi]. You’re twenty years before him.” He’s tough [on Cristi] but he’s understanding. He’s not acting as he is with the other cop, with who he is very hard. With Cristi, he is trying to teach, to convert, him.

You grew up under communism. How much in terms of western films were you able to see growing up?

I saw a lot, because we always had the black market. I saw a lot of Bruce Lee, and American films. Romantic comedies.

Did Stranger Than Paradise make it over during that period?

No [laughs]. I saw it much later. In the 1990s.

What do you think of the term “Romanian New Wave?”

I don’t think it’s a wave like the French New Wave, but at the same time, we have a similar taste of cinema, but each one of us tries to develop his own voice. We are individuals, each of us.

(IFC Films will open POLICE, ADJECTIVE, on Wednesday, December 23 in West Hollywood at Laemmle's Sunset 5, in Pasadena at Laemmle's Playhouse 7, in Encino at Laemmle's Town Center 5, in Costa Mesa/Santa Ana at Regal's South Coast Village 3, in New York at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, in Chicago at the Music Box and nationwide on IFC Films’ video on demand (VOD) platform, available to over 50 million homes in all major markets. The film will also open in four additional major markets on January 15, 2010, with a nationwide expansion over the next few weeks.)

Official Site for Police, Adjective: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/police-adjective