Movie Review: 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days

Posted by Loukas Tsouknidas (loukas@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 19, 2007

It won Palme d’Or in the latest Cannes Film Festival, so I had some expectations plus a bit of suspicion. The latter dissolved quickly as Christian Mungiu’s film absorbed me in its world of statutory terrorism and its products. This is harsh cinema, one that grabs you by the nuts and forces you to see what you choose to neglect.

In pre-Soviet-collapse Romania, abortion and even birth-control were prohibited by law. Still, many young people continued to make love as expected and a careless girl named Gabita got herself pregnant. Her friend Ottilia agrees to help her stop the pregnancy illegaly but Gabita is akward with the preparations. On top of all that the doctor they could find is not exactly a humanist causing all sorts of problems and asking more than expected before he proceeds. Ottilia gives her best to help a friend in need but during the day she realizes that nothing can be the same any more…

Mungiu directs with the intention to bring us as close as he can to Ottilia, put us in her position as an outsider throwing herself in the heart of the action. She obviously is closer to the part of the spectator than Gabita or the doctor, who are the only ones that are supposed to interact. He lets his camera roll in a steady frame where Ottilia expresses herself verbally or facially while action is taking place in the rest of the room. We watch her a bit too much until we begin to adapt her position. That way we feel the same agony about Gabita when Ottilia leaves her alone for a couple of hours to visit her boyfriend’s mother for a birthday party. You see, the camera follows her and never cuts back to the room until she comes back.

It’s really painfull in the end to realize how irreversible those experiences can be, how life-changing and indelible along with the protagonist. Anamaria Marinca plays her part subtly with few outbursts but enough to set the tone of her total revision of everything she took for granted. Laura Vasiliu is totally loveable as the girlish unaware Gambita, who needs someone to care for her to get by and Vlad Ivanov is shocking as the harsh opportunist doctor.

I listened to Mungiu talk five years ago in Thessaloniki, after the screening of his previous unfound gem Occident another tale of shattered dreams for a better life. He was very aware of the difficulties there are in filmmaking but seemed certain that he can make his kind of movies no matter what. With 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days he is officially Europe’s new kid-wonder.

This is realistic film-making at its best, shocking, revealing and nearly not once comforting.

Grade: A+

Release Date: January 25, 2008 Rated: Not Rated Running Time: 113 min. Cast: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Alexandru Potocean Director: Cristian Mungiu Screenplay: Cristian Mungiu Studio: IFC Films Official Website: Click Here

Read more articles by Loukas Tsouknidas