The Ninja Film Review: Romanian Noir
Created | Updated Aug 20, 2017
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The Ninja Film Review: Romanian Noir
You know me: you know how much I love Romanian cinema. I have raved on this site about the wonders of Strigoi and Chuck Norris v Communism. Romanians are the world's greatest when it comes to Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or dealing with the evils of the past. They don't lie about it: they get snarky and artistic at the same time. And their humour is desert dry.
Personally, I think a streaming service could do far worse than throw some money in the direction of Romanian filmmakers. So you can imagine my glee when Amazon turned up with Tovarasul Militian/Comrade Detective, a six-part cop show set in 1983 Bucharest. The premise was intriguing, to say the least:
In the 1980s, millions of Romanians tuned in to Comrade Detective, a gritty, sexy, communist buddy cop show that has now been digitally remastered and dubbed into English for the first time. . .
From the comments on Amazon, I'm afraid a few of my fellow Americans fell for this bogus strapline. Some were annoyed when they found out the series was shot last year by period-conscious Romanian actors before being dubbed into English by US actors including Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Kim Basinger. But at least one reviewer got into the spirit of it all.
Comrade Detective is a true gem from the Cold War era. I remember watching smuggled copies on betamax tapes back in the late 80's. . .
People who weren't clued in should have got the point by the opening of Episode 6, which features an all-too-brief cameo by Irina Margareta Nistor, the real-life subject of Chuck Norris v Communism. This is a glorious sendup of all things from the Ceausescu era. And it's real art.
The plot? Oh, you want one. Gregor Anghel is a hard-boiled 80s cop, but a true communist. When he sees his partner Nikita's throat slashed by a villain in a Ronald Reagan mask, he begins a relentless manhunt. To find the killer, he has to enlist the help of his new partner, country bumpkin Iosif Baciu. 'Baciul' means 'shepherd', and Anghel's nickname for his coworker won't get past the filther, but involves the word 'goat'. The detectives also have to deal with the American Ambassador and her assistant, two of the most devious Jordache-wearing capitalists you've ever run across. Things go from weird to surreal, especially when miscreants are smuggling in Bibles and copies of Atlas Shrugged, and getting high off the product. . .
You get the idea. It's amazing fun, and – bar the obvious satire – a more accurate picture of the Cold War mentality than most oldsters would probably be willing to admit. Our views of others are often as exaggerated as the stereotypes played out in the series. Communism is not the only target – capitalism takes plenty of well-deserved lumps. The viewer may be surprised at the light this little series sheds on the views from both sides of the Iron Curtain.
IMHO, the New York Times basically gets it wrong. Monica Castillo wrote, 'So meta that it’s hard to tell what it’s actually parodying. . . Any deeper sociopolitical messages are mostly incidental.' This is a normal reaction for the West's self-appointed (and too often, self-involved) cultural critics. But there's a lot more than that to be unpacked in Comrade Detective. Maybe European audiences will be a bit sharper. (We in the US prefer our politics on the obvious side, as you can probably tell from last year's election.) If you get a chance to see Tovarsul Militian/Comrade Detective, go for it.
If nothing else, the retro soundtrack is worth it. I never knew the song 'Are You Ready for the Sex Girls' existed. And I was in the Balkans back then.
