La Gomera

On La Gomera in the Canaries, there exists a language that is whistled, not spoken. The high-pitched tones carry perfectly from mountain peak to mountain peak, just as they do between the tall buildings of a city like Bucharest, where secret codes are desperately needed, as everybody there seems to be watching everybody else. A middle-aged policeman named Cristi thus arrives on the island to learn how to whistle, lured there by a mysterious woman called Gilda, the perfect name for a femme fatale, as film history suggests. The two of them are to return home and apply their new linguistic skills to carry out a heist, before splitting the loot with their trigger-happy Spanish cohorts. But nothing is ever that simple, whether in life or on the silver screen, as there are always new characters with new pieces of compromising information, each introduced with their own brightly colored title card, and Romanian loyalty isn’t what it used to be. Cinema tells us there’ll be twists and turns, all manner of double-crossings and an inevitable showdown, although the precise path is impossible to predict. Is there anything more deliciously entertaining than being taken for a merry ride? (James Lattimer)