Whistle, My Daughter

The Whistlers (2020) is a silly movie. I've seen it listed as a thriller-comedy, but it doesn't seem funny so much as weird. But at least it has some Canary Island whistle language.

In fact, it starts with Canary whistle language. Our protagonist, Vlad Ivanov, gets of the ferry to the Canary Island of La Gomera and is met by his handler, Catrinel Marlon, who takes him to meet local who will teach him whistle language. You see, in the hilly terrain of the Canaries, people learned to talk by whistling from hill to hill. And now Marlon's boss, wants Ivanov to learn this language to use in heists and other criminal endeavors back in Romania. 

Back in Romania, Ivanov's apartment is under total surveillance, because he is a police detective as well as a crook. So Marlon has to play an expensive hooker that he can only afford rarely on his salary to meet with him. He reports to his superiors that he is learning whistle language, and that he is trying to infiltrate the gang. It's quite confusing. 

In fact, I barely figured out that the plan involved springing Sabin Tambrea, Zsolt, from prison and getting 30 million Euros from a mattress factory. There are a lot of scenes that sort of go nowhere - maybe there was some clever clue in them, maybe not - I couldn't tell. For that matter, what a terrible idea using whistle language for crime is. It is loud, unusual enough to attract attention and generally not useful. 

But that's what we've got here - a semi-absurdist neo-noir, centered around the Canary Islands and Romania. The director, Corneliu Porumboiu, is a member of the Romanian New Wave, so it is also an art film, following the conventions thereof. We enjoyed it, but I can't say it has really stuck to us.

But I've always loved the idea of the Canarian whistle language, so it has that going for it.