“The Whistlers” Is Worth Whistling At

Release Date：Feb/28/2020
Genre：Comedy/Drama
Director：Corneliu Porumboiu
Cast：Vlad Ivanov、Catrinel Marlon

Viola's Rating：7.6













As “Parasite” received Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film at the 92^nd Academy Awards, the world has put more attention on feature films made outside of Hollywood. Every year, each country has one film run for the Best International Feature Film award, and this year, “The Whistlers” represented Romania for this honor. Although it didn’t get to the final round, it’s going to be released in the US on Feb 28, 2019.

Despite not a real story, the key element of “The Whistlers” is based on El Silbo, a whistled register of Spanish, used on the Spanish island of La Gomera. This dramatic comedy is not a typical one that will make the audience burst into laughter, but more like a noir. The plot depicts that the protagonist, Christi, who’s a policeman, is intent on freeing a crooked businessman from a prison in Romania, and he travels to Gomera, an island in the Canaries, where he must first learn the difficult local dialect, a whistling language which includes hissing and spitting.

Neither delivering the story chronologically nor through flashbacks, “The Whistlers” utilizes a special way to tell the plot, which is separated by characters. Instead of shooting the same event for eight different times to present the different perspectives of different characters like flicks such as “Vantage Point”, “The Whistlers” lets moviegoers be detectives themselves. Before another part is revealed, no one would know whether what happened before is what happened first, and who’s on the police side, and who’s not. All are questions to be answered. The audience isn’t omniscient like most puzzle-solving motion pictures, but to figure out little by little throughout the not so long 97 minutes.

One of the interesting details in “The Whistlers” is whether Christi is a double agent or not. From all info or synopsises, moviegoers can only get the information that he’s someone who plays both sides of the law, but how and why, we have no idea. Following the story, our points of view towards different characters might change again and again. In the end, no one’s one hundred percent sure who’s on which side, and that’s one of the magical powers “The Whistlers” has.

Furthermore, besides the incredible whistling language that was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009, there are a bunch of unbelievable, fantastic scenes in “The Whistlers”, making us wonder whether it’s reality or just Christi or some other characters’ imagination. Even after the credits rolled, the lights lit, it’s still possible that we don’t have a clue at all.

Even though it’s not an explicit movie, “The Whistlers” catches eyeballs through its mysterious case and much more that’s waited to be discovered. It might not become a blockbuster, but it’s definitely attractive enough for you to whistle at.

Picture Credit: IMDb