Review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) by Manny C — 30 Dec 2010

This piece of cinema dynamite is from Romania, and what you will witness on screen will blow you away. Its title notwithstanding, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days zips by in one day, and what a day! It snares you in a grip of suspense that would make Hitchcock look on in envy. Director Christian Mungiu employs no tricks; his camera sets itself up and simply observes. Though 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a political film, it makes its point brilliantly by being intensely personal. It's 1987 and the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu is in its final, waning days. Things start in college dorm where Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) is trying to help her roommate Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) arrange an abortion, something that is absolutely illegal, outlawed since 1966. Anyone involved in aiding and abetting and abortion is sent to jail, not just the mother. Thus illegal abortions were rampant, and its estimated some 500,000 women died from botched abortions.

Otilia and Gabita are taking an enormous risk. Gabita can't handle the looming poverty of single motherhood. Mungiu doesn't flinch, laying out the details with painful, bruising honesty, devoid of hollow preaching. The title refers to the exact point in time that Gabita is pregnant, which she doesn't reveal to the abortionist Bebe (Vlad Ivanov, exuding insidiousness). She fears he'll think she's too far along in her pregnancy. Bebe meets up with her in the hotel room he's arranged for what he refers to as the 'probe'. Ivanov is villainy incarnate, he can rival the evil general in Pan's Labyrinth. His attitude his frighteningly clinical, whether performing an abortion or demanding sexual favors.

But the tension and suspense really start to crackle after the abortion. Otilia leaves Gabita alone so she can have dinner with her boyfriend and his family. The dinner scene, shot in close-ups by the gifted cinematographer Oleg Mutu that are evocative of Bergman, drowning Otilia in a sea of inane chatter. Her thoughts are made clear through her expression, and it's destroying her from the inside. You won't be able to forget Otilia rushing back to Gabita to try and dispose of the fetus. Marinca is astonishing, and so is the filmmaking. An amazing coda closes the film as Mungiu shows a moment that speaks volumes of the film's themes. This is filmmaking raised to the level of art.