Vlad Ivanov

THE WHISTLERS: walking a tightrope of treachery

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Catrinel Marlon and Vlad Ivanov in THE WHISTLERS

In the absorbing crime thriller The Whistlers, Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) is a shady Romanian cop who is lured into a dangerous plot by the rapturously sexy Gilda (Catrinel Marlon) and the promise of a fortune. A lethal Spanish mafia is planning a Perfect Crime to recover the loot stolen by Gilda and her Romanian partner, Zsolt. Only Zslot knows where the treasure is, and he’s been jailed by Cristi’s colleagues. To beat the omnipresent surveillance of Romanian state security, Cristi is sent to La Gomera, an island in the Spanish Canary Islands to learn a whistling language.

A whistling language? Indeed, residents of La Gomera can communicate by whistling in code. The language is called Silbo Gomera and it was already being used in ancient Roman times. The whistling can be heard for up to two miles, which allows the locals to communicate across the impassable ravines on the mountainous island.

The plan to spring Zsolt depends on Cristi learning Silbo Gomera and then implementing an intricate plan in which nothing can go wrong. Even if the plan goes right, Cristi and Gilda run the very real risk of being killed by the pitiless Spanish mafia or by the corrupt and unaccountable Romanian cops. Cristi and Gilda are walking a tightrope of treachery.

Vlad Ivanov in THE WHISTLERS

The Whistlers is written and directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, who is a master of the deadpan. Two of his earlier films became art house hits in the US, 12:08 East of Bucharest and Police, Adjective. Both of those films explored fundamental corruption in Romanian society as a legacy of the communist era..

Cristi is played by Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov. Ivanov is best known for the Romanian masterpiece 4 Days, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, in which he played one of cinema’s most repellent characters – Mr. Bebe, the sexual harassing abortionist. American audiences have also seen Ivanov’s performances in Police, Adjective and Snowpiercer.

Ivanov excels in playing Everyman piñatas, which serves him well in The Whistlers. Ivanov delivered a tour de force in the 2019 Cinequest film Hier, as a man more and more consumed by puzzles, and increasingly perplexed, dogged, battered and exhausted.

For The Whistlers to work, Catrinel Marlon must make Gilda quick-thinking and gutsy, and she pulls it off. She is very good, as is Rodica Lazar as Cristi’s coldly ruthless boss Magda.

This is a Romanian film with dialogue in Romanian, English, Spanish and, of course, whistling. The Whistlers, a top notch crime thriller, can be streamed from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

HIER: riddle, mystery, enigma, brilliant

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Vlad Ivanov (left) in HIER

In the brilliant and original drama Hier, middle-aged Victor Ganz has built a successful global engineering enterprise.  He takes what he thinks is a quick trip to Morocco to quell an apparent hiccup in one of his construction projects.  But when he arrives, he finds that the problem with his project doesn’t exist after all, but a mysterious stranger appears and threatens him about something else altogether.  Decades before, Victor had worked in Morocco as an adventuresome young man; incomplete memories of that experience are revived and begin to obsess him.  He becomes a detective but doesn’t fully understand what he is looking for in his own past.

Soon Victor is immersed in puzzling déjà vu.  Is he going crazy?  Is he imagining something in his past or his present?  Who is the woman he is driven to find again?  And why does Victor keep getting beaten up like a human piñata?

Referring to Russian unpredictability, Winston Churchill said, ” It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”  He might have just watched Hier. as Victor’s confusion becomes ever more trippy.

Ganz is played by Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov in a tour de force.  As Ivanov ‘s Victor is more and more consumed by the puzzles,  he becomes increasingly perplexed, dogged, battered and exhausted.

Ivanov is best known for the Romanian masterpiece 4 Days, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, in which he played one of cinema’s most repellent characters, Mr. Bebe, the sexually harrassing abortionist. American audiences have also seen Ivanov’s performances in Police, Adjective and Snowpiercer.

This is a Hungarian film, but it takes place in Morocco, Some of the dialogue is in English, most is in subtitled French, with some in unsubtitled Arabic (because the protagonist is not fluent in Arabic).

The film’s original Hungarian title is Tegnap, the word for “Yesterday”; the international title is the French word for “yesterday”, Hier (a marketing mistake IMO).  Of course, the protagonist’s obsession is an episode in the past – yesterday – that he remembers and understands only in fragments.

Hier is an impressive first feature for writer-director Bálint Kenyeres. Cinequest hosts the North American premiere of Hier, which is one of the world cinema highlights of the festival.