4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
by Cristian Mungiu

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DVD details

Actor: Alexandru Potocean, Anamaria Marinca, Ion Sapdaru, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov
Director: Cristian Mungiu
DVD: Region Code 1
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

DVD Reviews of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

DVD Review: devastating drama... def. not for the squemish
Summary: 5 Stars

mances by the principals, the film opens slow, but one's patience is rewarded as it becomes, by the halfway mark, one of the most effective real-life horror stories I have ever seen. I wish I could send a copy of this to every American who is uncertain about the issue of reproductive rights in these uncertain times, with a note that it wasn't that long ago that the kind of situation described here could just as easily happened here, in the US, rather than pre-"Fall of the Wall" Romania. That said this movie is NOT for the squeamish. It takes more fortitude to watch parts of this film than the climax of calculated, fictional horror stories like Mikie' "Audition." Winner of the Palm D'Or at Cannes in 2007, this would make a fine home-viewing double bill with the winner of the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, "The Lives of Others." Highly recommended.

DVD Review: Life of women in communist Romania
Summary: 5 Stars

This film kept me at the edge of my seat from start to finish. Film is set in Romania where many things are scarce: cigarettes, tic-tac, soap, cosmetics and yes - doctors that can perform abortion since the abortion over there is illegal. One has to understand a little bit of the culture of that part of the world to truly understand the value of the film. Young women are left to their own device when their boyfriends make them pregnant. It is kind of world were boys have no responsibility - financial or otherwise once girl finds herself pregnant. It was also kind of world were contraceptives are either scarce or not available, single motherhood is socially unacceptable and orphanages are places where innocents are punished for the "sins" of their (often underage) parents. Two roommates, young girls from small places in Romanian provinces are forced to make hurried arrangement for one of them to have an abortion. The entire operation must be kept secret and everyone involved must be bribed in one way or another. To make matters worse, this is advanced pregnancy and the risks are great. One can loose life during the procedure, or spend several years in prison if discovered in this illegal activity. One does not have to be a woman to find this story frightening. And the story itself is not only about unwanted pregnancy. It is about unprotected sex, vulnerability of the women, supression of the women, shallowness of the so-called intellectuals. Young people's parents are more worried about them smoking than being sexually active; bringing someone flowers for her 48th birthday is more important than helping another person after inhumanely performed abortion. This film will leave you dumb funded long time after you have finished watching it.

DVD Review: The Unhollywood
Summary: 5 Stars

What if it was true?

Almost no one would answer the question on what would happen if abortions WERE outlawed by the State. Would we jail the women? Kill the abortionists? It's out of the question in a civilized nation. Right? Well... not exactly. Communist Romania did outlaw abortion during the 70's and 80's. The reasons were not exactly humanitarian but the end result was that early abortions were punished with a few years in prison and late term abortions, past the 4th month were treated as murders. This is the telling of a (possibly true) story from those years. It's an illustration of what we here, in the States, like to call a `back alley abortion'. The back alley, in this case, is a hotel room, a rather decent one.

The visual environment and the way characters interact are consistent with Romania's impoverished status back in 1987 - there's little color, little hope, few lights at night, little joy. The few extras we see are shown as small, disoriented, defeated people performing absurd or incomprehensible (to us) activities such as wandering aimlessly in the night, lining up in queues or risking whatever was left of their freedom for some meager black market profits. Everyone seems to be indifferent, corruptible, bored, boring, alone, lonely but surprisingly well-mannered, given the circumstances. Had this been a Hollywood production, we might have ended up watching a zombie or a body-snatcher type of a movie but this one was made in East Europe and the Hollywood advisers didn't bother to offer their precious advice so what we see are the memories of a reality not completely dead.

Gabriela (Gabi) is a senior student who shares a dorm room and has a good friend in Otilia. She seems to understand little about the facts of life and, once she turns pregnant, she tries to do what everyone viewed as the `natural' choice those days - end the pregnancy through an abortion.

Otilia is Gabi's roommate and her best friend. She makes everything happen while Gabi is passively waiting for the problem to go away. A senior student, Otilia views her own future either as living a boring life, helping run some remote factory or as a possible housewife following her 'man', making mashed potatoes and maybe playing mommy for him. She is under no illusion that he would ever stand up for her if not doing so was a more convenient or a safer option. Living in a dorm, sharing a room with Gabriela, she has no choice but mature a little. She is dating the son of a more well-to-do family but she doesn't expect much from him beyond some brief moments of intimacy. She feels obligated to help Gabriela because no one else would and, if she didn't, she would be completely alone. She's not only Gabi's friend, she's her mother too because she needs to care about someone and because no one else would volunteer.

Otilia's boyfriend (forgot the name) at 23 or 24 is still his mother's baby. Otilia doesn't trust him with much beyond his ability to provide her with a little intimacy.

Bebe, the abortionist, is a loving son who doesn't forget to stop and make sure that his old, helpless mother is okay on his way to the abortion. He is quite good at what he does. He sterilizes his tools; he is using antibiotics and provides good post-procedure advice. He even offers to make a free follow up visit. He is also demanding some special type of compensation for his services.

Otilia is the main character. All throughout the movie, the camera follows her and all others are relevant to the extent that Otilia interacts with them. This makes sense because she is the only one who DOES anything. Everyone else appears to be devoid of initiative or free will. The plot is simple. Gabi wants to have her (illegal) abortion but she waits for Otilia to do most of the work and take most of the risks. It gets to a point where Otilia accepts having sex with the abortionist as payment for his services. Once the abortion is complete, Otilia helps dispose of the baby and life continues.

Gabriela, the pregnant one, has given up on almost everything. She seems to be willing to allow for "things" to be done for her or to her. She lies and she begs to get by. She is made pregnant, she lets Otilia arrange for her own abortion while she's busy waxing her legs, she lets the abortionist handle her body and she's not afraid because Otilia is there, watching, she doesn't object to his taking his pay by having sex with Otilia. She doesn't demand that Otilia agrees to that `payment' but she begs the abortionist not to leave when Otilia does not appear to be in the mood to pay with her own body. After the baby is aborted, Otilia, again, is the one who disposes of the little body while Gabi goes down to the restaurant, waiting for her return. The frightening suspicion (my suspicion) is that Gabi probably knew what type of `payment' the abortionist was going to demand but she goes along with it all because that option was going to be `cheaper'.

Overall, while `abortion' is what all of this seems to be about, the more subtle and the more frightening aspect is the background and IT is important because this movie is meant to be a snapshot of life `then'. What we see is a nation or a world where meaningful interactions beyond some immediate family ties are close to non-existent. Paradoxically, while the communist utopia called for a society where individuals were perfectly integrated into their communities, what we observe is a caricature Hobbesian world. It's a world were all the good pickings were already picked by some invisible entities and everyone else is struggling for the leftovers and they are allowed to do so for as long as they are not overtly disruptive to the imposed order. The symbolism is subtle but powerful - Otilia walking or running around on her numerous errands, usually at night, always alone, followed by or crossing paths with stray dogs and strangers without faces, the omnipresent policemen, Otilia and Gabi being served leftovers from a wedding at their post-abortion meal. There are no or little moral concerns. Whatever works is good for as long as it works and that includes Gabriela's choice to abort. No one - Gabriela, Otilia, Bebe - ever expresses any second thoughts about the morality of what they were about to do, their concerns seem to be about Gabi's health (infection), the inconvenience of her possibly having to wait for a day or two before the artificial miscarriage takes place and the risks of being caught and punished. Gabi does seem to show some sympathy for her baby AFTER it is all done and the baby lies on the bathroom floor, as she asks Otilia to bury him rather than throw the little body in the trash. It's frightening because the world used to be like that THERE and THEN and it's frightening because, chance are, the world is trending in that direction EVERYWHERE but, hopefully, not FOREVER.

I am giving this movie 5 stars not because the Frenchies gave it their Palme d'Or at Cannes but because this movie is unafraid to discuss topics that us, Americans, not unlike Otilia's boyfriend, can only accept when served to us in the form of brightly-colored sci-fi, make-believe allegories that can't possibly be real. It gets stars for courage, for Anamaria Marinca's (Otilia) acting, for the director's ability to tell a hard to tell, horrifying story.

Little notes: there is no overt violence, there is some brief nudity but sexual activities are not explicitly displayed. The aborted, bloodied fetus is shown. The dialogues are in Romanian with English and Spanish subtitles available. There is no music, sound effects, explosions or any other kind of special effects.

DVD Extras:

- A short documentary following a German 'movie caravan' that, after the Palme d'Or award, attempted to show the movie to Romanians. The country has only 37-50 movie theaters left, serving about 25 million people.

- An extraordinary, MUST SEE, interview with Writer/Director/Producer Cristian Munjiu, discussing the ethics of cinematographically telling a story.

- An interview with Cinematographer Oleg Mutu.

DVD Review: Harrowing tale of friendship
Summary: 5 Stars

"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or prize winner, is a harrowing tale of a young Romanian university student who discovers she's pregnant and the effects of her attempt to get an abortion on both her and her friend and roommate.
Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) has allowed her pregnancy to progress into its second trimester because of a combination of denial, fear, and ignorance. Depressed and terrified, she relies on friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) to book a hotel room, meet an abortionist, and come up with the necessary money.
Director Cristian Mungiu presents this sad tale in almost documentary fashion. There is no glamor lighting, no cinematic tricks, no artificial moments, not even music to suggest mood. It is a stark movie that reveals the raw emotion of the two young women racing against time as they navigate the horrors of police state rigidity, negotiate with an abortionist with far greater bargaining leverage than theirs, and risk imprisonment.
Often movies about abortion polarize audiences: Pro-lifers will abhor them, pro-choicers will applaud them. With "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," this isn't the case. It doesn't preach either way. The focus is on the plight of the two women, particularly Otilia, after they've made a reluctant decision. Their experience hardly ends with rose petals and champagne. They have gone through danger and dehumanization.
When it comes to screen villains, seldom has there been one as creepy and scary as Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the abortionist. When he first meets with the girls, director Mungiu presents a lengthy, fairly low-key scene that sends chills through the viewer as Bebe calmly reprimands them for not following his instructions exactly as he outlined. He is like a schoolmaster scolding his students for breaches of classroom protocol. Oddly, there is also a paternal tone to his admonitions. He doesn't shout or threaten. He simply, methodically goes over the instructions he has given, makes sure the girls understood them, and then enumerates how they have veered from his prescribed directions. He is risking his freedom, he states, and the girls' departure from instructions imperils him.
The scene builds as he and Gabita and Otilia discuss money, the procedure itself, what Gabita will experience, and even disposal of the fetus. By cutting frequently to close-ups of Otilia and Gabita, Mungiu underscores their terror and disgust at the events Bebe discusses so matter-of-factly.
We stay with Otilia as we meet her boyfriend Adi (Alex Potocean) and his family at a birthday celebration for his mother. Because this occurs the same day as the planned abortion, Otilia wants to pass, but after petulant pleas from Adi, she agrees to stop over briefly. In a scene played in one shot, we see Otilia surrounded by Adi and his well-to-do, professional family members at the dinner table and we hear dinnertime conversation that condescends to working people -- people like Otilia. The scene resonates because of the family's easy affluence and Otilia's own grim, secret attempt to help a friend in need.
"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," not rated, is heavy-duty movie going. It is free of politically correct garnish, offering a somber portrait of two desperate women allied in their attempt to extricate one of them from a terrible predicament. The movie relentlessly shows the awful reality of skirting the law, compromising personal morality, and subjugating themselves to both physical and emotional distress.

DVD Review: Deserving of all the praise
Summary: 5 Stars

This unsparing film is about an abortion, but not really about abortion (the issue). A similar thing applies to its display of Ceausescu's Romania: much is shown, but nothing is forced. Mungiu just tells the story and let's us infer any meaning we'd like. I think it really benefits the viewer not to look at it through the political issues of abortion or communism, but to focus on the characters.

Description of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 10/14/2008 Run time: 113 minutes

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 Graham

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