As seen at AFI Fest 2007:
Cristian Mungiu’s 4
Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days beautifully recalls the
tradition of cinema verite employed by the participants
of the French New Wave, stripping itself down to the bare
essentials of filmmaking and crafting a product of frustrated
social significance out of them. On the exterior, there is very
little to the movie, but its effortlessness is supremely
deceiving. Mungiu carefully places every frame of film and
displays a stunning emotional prowess over the material—in fact,
he only shot one scene that didn’t make the final cut—and
creates a work that is impossible not to be affected by. He may
not be as technically innovative as Godard or Truffaut were in
their day, but he is every bit as much concerned with the
vitality of grassroots cinema.
The film takes place in 1987
Communist-ruled Romania. Mungiu depicts the influence of
the totalitarian government in a very even-handed manner, most
prominently displaying the practical ways in which ordinary
people are affected by the oppressive State (such as having to
buy imported cigarettes on the Black Market). The protagonist is
Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) who, the viewer soon learns, has
decided to aid in the illegal abortion of her college-roommate
Gabita’s (Laura Vasiliu) unborn child. Spearheading the
operation due to Gabita’s noticeable fear and despair, Otilia
finds a hotel room for the procedure to be conducted in, meets
with the abortionist (Vlad Ivanov), and ensures that no one
catches them in the process. She is not fearless, but never
shows her true vulnerability, realizing that peoples’ lives are
in her hands and that she has accepted responsibility in the
situation.
Despite being labeled “the
Abortion Movie” ever since it won the Palme d’Or this year at
the Cannes Film Festival, the picture makes very few comments on
the morality of the practice of abortion itself. Mungiu openly
acknowledges the barbarism of the procedure through the film (as
seen in a long take, which prominently shows the aborted fetus
in the foreground), but understands that it is not his place to
make any type of contemporary political statement on the issue.
He merely depicts a set of real people and asks the viewer to
consider the actions of these people when they are thrust into
an extraordinary situation. There are no clearly defined heroes
or villains in 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, just
characters responding to the events that arise in their lives.
Whether Gabita, Otilia, the abortionist, or the government is to
blame for Gabita’s terminated pregnancy is the decision of the
audience alone.
Whatever conclusion one
reaches about the justness of the abortion by the end of the
film (if this conclusion is relevant to one’s impression at
all), one will be fittingly shaken by Mungiu’s harrowing
depiction of the events in the film. He sticks to
uncompromisingly long, fixed takes in nearly every scene,
carefully framing each shot. All at once, the viewer forgets
that Mungiu is manipulating what is onscreen and never
forgets the genius of his work. A sequence of very few shots in
which the abortionist describes the procedure and its severity,
particularly because of the revealed true age of Gabita’s child,
functions powerfully in this regard. As much as we might like to
trivialize the abortionist’s character to make the story easier
to swallow, Mungiu doesn’t allow us to. The abortionist, called
Mr. Bebe, is a human being who is risking just as much as Gabita
thinks that she is in conducting the procedure: a life, a
family, and a sense freedom from the oppressive government.
(Abortion in Communist Romania was, of course, severely
punishable by law).
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2
Days never pretends to find a Light at the End of the
Tunnel; Mungiu remains unrelentingly realistic in his approach
throughout. To grant these characters a tidy ending (although
the viewer could certainly interpret the one that they get as
being hopeful) would be of grave disservice to them. Once
the abortion is actually carried out, the graveness of the
action surfaces, affecting Otilia in particular. She is the
focus of the film for a reason, forced to endure a far stronger
range of emotions than any other character involved due to her
burdening feeling of responsibility concerning the unfolding
events. This feeling is captured perfectly in a heart-stopping,
primal, gut-wrenching, minutes-long tracking shot in which she
must dispose of the unborn fetus.
That I have written a full
page on the film and not once singled out the extraordinary
performance of Marinca in the role of Otilia speaks to just how
much I have to praise about the work. However, without Marinca,
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days would be nowhere near the
affecting motion picture that it is. The actress brings both
strength and imperilment to a complex character, somehow
allowing the viewer to feel unconditionally sympathetic to
Otilia while still questioning her sense of morality. Largely
due to Marinca’s nuanced work, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
cements itself as a complex, challenging, relevant, and
ultimately draining piece of cinema. To my eyes, the picture
represents an instant landmark in contemporary filmmaking. Right
now, in November of 2007, I am almost certain that I will not
see a better picture than this one released in all of 2008.