4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
by Cristian Mungiu
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alexandru Potocean, Anamaria Marinca, Ion Sapdaru, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad IvanovDirector: Cristian Mungiu
Cinematographer: Oleg Mutu
Editor: Dana Bunescu
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-14
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: IFC Films
Movie Reviews of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Movie Review: A powerhouse film that will shake you to your core...
Summary: 5 Stars
It's taken a while for me to get comfortable with the idea of writing a review for this film, namely because the film has effected me to such an extreme that it's almost too painful to put into words. I have always had an emotional reaction to anything dealing with the death and or mistreatment of a child and I am extremely pro-life and highly against the act of abortion, so I knew going into this movie that I was going to be an emotional wreck. I actually expected to despise to film and or find immense fault with it.
I can't do that because there are no faults to be found.
`4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' follows the efforts of two women to secure an illegal abortion in Romania during the 1980's. Our main focal point is Otilia, roommate to the pregnant Gabriela, as she finds Bebe, the man willing to perform the abortion; and thus begins their very long evening.
The film is marvelously shot in a manner that draws you into the lives of these two women. The camera slowly lags behind, allowing us to follow them as if we were an outsider peering into their world without their knowledge; allowing us to know them from a distance, seeing their true colors and not the fa?ade they throw up in front of the ones they know and love. The rawness and grittiness of the film carries with it a sense of reality. What is so painful about `4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' is that it feels as it this is a home video and this situation is not a fictional movie but real life. The script is expertly written to come across real and believable. The dialog is conversational, awkward and sincere. Director/screenwriter Cristian Mungiu must be singled out and praised for his beautiful and honest handling of this material, for had he mishandled the film in any way it would have lost its presence and depth.
The acting is triumphant and really procures this film's brilliance. Anamaria Marinca is flawless as Otilia. What I love so much about her performance is that she really made this movie all about her. She is not the pregnant woman undergoing the strenuous abortion yet Otilia is just as devastatingly effected by the procedure and the outcome and thus we are able to experience what she is experiencing because we too are just an outsider peering in. As the film progresses we can witness the layers of protection pealing away from Otilia's guard until she is finally exposed in all her rawness as human and deeply conflicted. Laura Vasiliu is also extremely impressive as Gabriela. Her panicky mannerisms and paranoid tendencies ring so true for her situation, and like Marinca, Vasiliu allows her characters guard to slowly drop so that we are gradually shown who she really is. Vlad Ivanov has a small but very crucial part in the film as Bebe. His performance is uncanny, truly gut-wrenching as we see the selfishness and heartlessness that comes from having a power over weaker ones. His character is easy to hate but his performance is even easier to adore.
With all that said, there is much more to `4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' than a great script, superb acting and flawless direction.
`4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' is the only film, and I mean only film, that was able to unlock something within me that has been caged for a long time. I remember literally shaking throughout the duration of the film, my hands clenching my sofa cushions tightly and my skin shivering over my bones. I remember my breath left me a few times and I had to fight to focus on the screen; my eyes blurred by the sting of tears. Like I said at the outset of my review, the life of a child is something very near and dear to me. Being a father (a new father at that) I have very strong opinions on the matter and so this film was very hard for me to watch. There are many disturbing scenes, not necessarily graphic (although there are some) but disturbing in the sense that what you are witnessing goes against every you have ever truly believed in (that is if you believe as I do); but I think even if you are pro-choice and have no quarrels with the idea of abortion, this film will strike you at your very core.
This is the only, and I mean only, film that has ever made me weep.
What is so amazing about `4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' is that by its end you are forced to really sympathize with both sides of the spectrum and that final scene, with Otilia and Gabriela at the table really explains in full the feelings of the audience at that very moment. As they are obviously thinking `what have we just done' we as the audience are thinking `what did we just witness'. The film is very neutral which works to its advantage. This is not a film about pro-choice or pro-life; it is merely a film about a choice made to take a life and the emotional distress it causes the ones involved. `4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' bleeds dry with honesty, and honesty that is haunting because it strikes so close to home.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch `4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' again. Like I mentioned, the film made me weep. I literally finished the film and then walked straight into my daughter's room and curled into the fetal position on her floor and wept. I felt emotionally drained; empty so-to-speak. Since seeing this film (about three or four months ago now) I have been able to think of nothing else. It's because of this that I must admit `4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile' to be one of the greatest films I've ever seen. No, it was not a desired `experience' but honestly the film is the very definition of what a film should be. It is a very difficult film to get through and it brings to the table feelings of hate, misery, regret and guilt, but in the end it will leave with you a part of its soul, and only a masterpiece can do something like that.
Summary of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
There was a loud outcry when Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days failed to garner a 2008 Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and it could certainly be argued that this extraordinary movie was unfairly overlooked. At the very least, had it been nominated, it would have offered a stark contrast to Best Picture contender Juno. Whereas the latter is a funny, touching tale of a teenage girl who decides to find more suitable parents for her soon-to-be-born child, 4 Months is a decidedly bleak look at a time and place when one of the two alternatives to adoption (i.e., keeping the child) is beyond consideration and the other is an illegal, highly dangerous last resort. It takes a while for the viewer to realize that abortion is the subject of director Cristian Mungiu's film; for the first 40 minutes or so, all we know is that Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), college roommates in a country still controlled by the Ceausescu dictatorship, are up to something they'd prefer to keep secret. Gabita, it develops, is pregnant. She is also an innocent, scared screw-up who's unable to handle any of the necessary details involved in solving her problem, which obliges the far more capable Otilia to take care of everything from booking the hotel and meeting the abortionist to buying black market cigarettes for the pair. What follows is anything but cute, clever, or romantic. Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the abortionist, is a straightforward but frightening character who demands more than money for his services. Meanwhile, Adi, Otilia's boyfriend, is a decent but essentially clueless fellow who insists that she attend his mother's birthday party on the very day that the two girls have checked into the hotel where Gabita's procedure takes place; the two scenes in which we meet Bebe and Adi's parents, reveal Mongiu's mastery of his medium and are at once intense, discomfiting, and completely riveting. And if Oscar voters missed the boat, many other didn't: among numerous other plaudits for the film was the '07 Palme d'Or at Cannes. --Sam GrahamTwo College Roommates have 24 hours to make the ultimate choice as they finalize arrangements to meet a black market doctor for an illegal abortion. What follows is their harrowing descent into a world in where danger, darkness and tragedy lurk around every corner.
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