Direction: Bogdan George Apetri
Country: Romania
Unidentified is the first installment in a crime trilogy envisioned by Bogdan George Apetri, who keeps one foot in the ridiculousness of the Romanian police routines and the other in an impossible-to-solve crime mystery that puts us off-balance. Even slipping in critical observations about the precariousness, human disconnectedness, sexism, and prejudice in his country, the director wasn’t as efficient in the orchestration of this coal-dark satire as in Miracle, the film that followed up. Both films were shot simultaneously and share a couple of characters.
Florin is the man that catches our attention here; an indebted, sleepless and highly obsessed police inspector determined to solve a strange case in which two mothers were burned alive. But if his colleagues sin for indifference, then he takes his efforts too far. This is a challenging role for actor Bogdan Farcas in a work whose staging sinks into mannerism, leaving only room for the paranoid behavior of a policeman who thinks he is above the law.
Unidentified is exactly like its protagonist: too serious to make us laugh, and too laughable to be taken seriously. A strong sense of incredulity grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. The result, an attempted mixture of adrenaline, madness and despair, never managed to keep me on the edge of my seat.
Without sparing us any details related to this cop’s machinations, Apetri seems fascinated by him. We, less.
