Talking about whistling without mentioning the hilarious theme composed by Vladimir Cosma for the film Les Compères or the final scene of La Vie de Brian is really not serious. Similarly, not summoning The Bridge on the River Kwai would make no sense. Besides, at the rate things are going, evading the scene, in La Grande Vadrouille, of making contact with Big Mustache at the Turkish baths, just like the old credits of “30 million friends”, could be seen as an act of cancel culture.
Not to mention dismissing M le Maudit, which would be judged by moviegoers as a crime of ignorance. On the other hand, evoking Fritz Lang’s masterpiece from the sole angle of the place of the whistle in the plot runs the risk of sounding like an idiot (if this is not already the case).
And what about forgetting to have a fond thought for the great whistler Micheline Dax or her current Californian reincarnation, Molly Lewis? In the record department, it would be like throwing away Wind of Change by Scorpions, whose whistled intro recalls the cold of that time which, in 1990, blew between the blocks of East and West. A power ballad that takes us to Moscow, where, for the singer of the German group, the air takes on the scent of seesaw. A premonition in which some believe they recognize the gloved hand of the CIA.
Slaps that get lost
Finally, hiding the fact that a whistleblower, for the rest of the world, says whistle blower, would cut us off from the whistle, because whistling, more than a musical motif, is a language. Signal of warning, cunning, discontent… its messages are multiple. At this stage, we cannot forget to mention its (unfortunate) use in street cruising.
In terms of the slaps that get lost, let’s go back to the cinema for a moment. Cult film of the adolescent genre, The Breakfast Club brings together, for a day of glue, a core of students that everything separates. Condemned to a sentence of silence, the small group will federate around a whistled game. It is the most seditious and the coolest too, “the delinquent”, who, denim jacket on his back, pirate scarf tied on his head, launches the movement.
At a time when teenage fashion of that time (1985), and in particular this famous and essential denim jacket, was getting a makeover, the message sent was then as clear as a western theme by Ennio Morricone. A girl who whistles, it was once said, makes the Virgin cry. So let’s bet that this is true and that it is joy.
