How sad is this?

Best movie ever!

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I first watched this film about a year ago, and I struggled through it because it truly is one of the slowest and uneventful films you'll ever see, but It has grown on me a lot and isn't a film that you'll forget after seeing. The film deals with themes like guilt, responsibility, choice, patience, with some underlined political themes. Its one thing to conceptualize a film effectively but it's another to execute it correctly, and I think Corneliu Porumboiu did a very honorable job in both those departments. It's one of my favorite films, actually. there's a scene near the end of the film where the main character, one of his colleagues, and his boss are sitting in his office discussing the main character's struggle between the law and his own conscience. This scene goes on for close to 30 minutes if i remember correctly, and it's all done on one shot, with the exception of a few little overlapping shots to view the contents of a dictionary in the main character's hands. I was really impressed by that whole scene. Even if you don't love it, it's definitely worth at least one watch.

A Wry Comedy – ***Warning: Spoilers*** The appropriate adjective is "absurd." This is an understated comedy about the absurdity of a government bureaucracy and legal system in which no one but the the clerical workers have anything to do. It is not so much a "police procedural" as a satire on how the procedures are employed by everyone throughout the chain of command to justify numbingly wasting hour after hour, day after day, doing essentially nothing. Unfortunately, for most of the film the audience may not be entirely in on the joke.We follow the main character, Cristi, as he engages in a meaningless investigation involving three high school students which should have ended on day one but drags on and on as nothing further happens. The plot device which successfully holds our interest is Cristi's supposed crisis of "conscience" over the possibility of ruining the life of the young suspected drug dealer among the three.However, in a pair of ending scenes which are truly funny and confirm that for the past two hours we have been watching a comedy, Cristi's crisis of conscience is challenged by his superior in an absurd dialogue involving the dictionary - and the following day Cristi outlines a plan to arrest the subjects which is so detailed you would think the targets are the heads of an international cartel. In the end, Cristi's moral dilemma appears to be as much related to his need to attach some meaning to his job as to any reservations over draconian Romanian drug laws.There are no villains here, with the possible exception of "the squealer," the young snitch who started the investigation apparently due to some fissure in his former friendship with the target of the investigation. Everyone including the bosses seem to be basically decent people trying to find some way to cope with the boredom of their jobs in the same way that Cristi uses his crisis of conscience to cope with his.As a viewer, this is what keeps you from feeling "punked" when you realize that what you have been watching was an exercise in coping with bureaucratic induced boredom. Just as the characters have to find a justification for the boredom and meaningless of their jobs, we have to find something, in this case Cristi's dilemma of conscience, to justify our watching their boredom for two hours – even though in the end this rationale is rendered effectively meaningless. It's human nature, shared by the characters and the viewers – if there is no real reason to justify how we are spending our time we will manufacture one.In the end, although I would hesitate to recommend this movie, I do find substantial things to admire about it. It is smart and has a clear purpose which the director adhered to without deviation despite the fact that it cannot be easy, and requires tremendous restraint, to make a movie about endless boredom – and I don't mean that facetiously. And, in retrospect, it is funnier and more focused than it appears as you are watching it, as well as provocative enough to stimulate discussion. I don't find it as compelling as other recent Romanian works such as "Four Months…etc." And I fall somewhere between those who effusively admire it and those who totally dismiss it – but I would definitely pay attention to this director's future efforts.

This is not a movie, is a waste of time. The dialogs and the acting is good for a primate, not for a decent human being. Please if you have anything else to do, just skip this so called movie, highly overrated by "romanian movie fans", mostly soap opera movie lovers. Just not worth it. The film plot is non existing, storyline is not a real storyline. The director simply doesn't know how to stop shooting and when enough is really enough. As someone else says, this film doesn't have any visual nudity. I really don't know why people are trying to make such movies these days, what's the point of delivering a movie who doesn't deliver anything?

loved it, so simple, yet meaningful, real-life like, and profound. Enjoyed every minute of it. The movie is full of peace, love! Any person who loves to look deeper in movies and scripts will immensely enjoy the experience.This movie makes you think that how in studio movies, we have moved away from real life and into make-up, gadgetry, fancy cars, fancy houses and in the process we loose the real feeling that makes a movie close to life. The movie is set in no pretentious neighborhood, no fancy houses, cars, dresses and gadgets. Because all is real.Plot: a police detective is faced by a situation where his moral voice does not allow him to follow orders and become a party in the arrest of some kids who smoke hashish. He believes that if he became a party to the arrest, his will never be able to walk with clear conscious. The movie is all about how he does not want to do something which he thinks will haunt him for the rest of his life.