Review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) by Zoran S — 12 Sep 2008

Winner of the top prize at the 2007 Cannes festival, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days unfolds in a simple but brutally naturalistic style in telling the story of a college aged woman attempting to get an illegal abortion with the aid of her roommate. The film is set in Romania in 1987, which places it at the tail end of the authoritarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, who was overthrown and executed in 1989. Abortions were illegal under the Ceausescu regime largely for the purposes of national engineering. It is no wonder, then, the Romania had such large rates of poverty.

There is not much in the way of plot 4 Months. It merely unfolds, over a short space of time, as Gabriela and her roommate Otilia rent out a hotel for Gabriela to have an abortion. What follows from such a simple premise, however, are some of the most emotionally harrowing scenes I have seen in a movie this year, or any year for that matter. Knots formed in my stomach more than once: Indeed, without giving too much away, though like only three people read this blog anyway, but parts of the negotiations with the "doctor" over money, and the after effects of the abortion are so devastating that I felt like I was punched in the stomach.

It is interesting to see how, in the last few years, Romanian cinema has carved out an international presence. The best film I saw from 2005 was the Romanian The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, which also told a harrowing story in largely naturalistic terms. I have yet to see the 2006 film 12:08 Bucharest which also received considerable international recognition. While it is a great pleasure to see cinemas emerge from nations not usually given an international forum, I wonder if the brutal naturalisms of films like Lazarescu or 4 Months will eventually aesthetically date them in the same way a film like Bicycle Thieves is no longer considered the heights of naturalism and realism.

Well, whether or not 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days will become a timeless film, there is no denying it is a timely and powerful film in 2007. It is miles away from trite films like Knocked Up where abortion is barely mentioned and the whole thing is just a male fantasy (something which incidentally even the main actress has acknowledged in interviews). In its portrait of female friendship and ethically solidarity, not to mention in its analysis of how state oppression is inscribed in the very bodies of women, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is one of the most important films of recent years.