TIFF 2019 opened on a ferry to La Gomera in the Canary Islands. A Romanian detective is entwined in a plot to free a prisoner who knows the whereabouts of 30 million euros back in Bucharest. He is there to meet the prisoner's girlfriend, Gilda, and his compatriots.
Surveillance (and the surveillance state) is a real and constant presence in the movie. To avoid detection, the gang have learned an indigenous language of the islands known as "El Siblo", a language which uses whistling to communicate. Communication (and how communication can be obscured or disguised) becomes a central theme of this noirish crime drama.
The pacing is very deliberate and I suspect that some people may find it a bit too slow and low-key. I gave myself over to the film and enjoyed it. There are also numerous references to film and film-making (a key location is an abandoned movie set in Bucharest), which added to my enjoyment.
If there's a fault in the film, it's the ending. I found it a little too "Hollywood" and smacked a little of overt product placement (beyond that, I will say no more).
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