Winner of the Palme d’Or award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” is really about just one day. It’s 1987 in Bucharest, Romania. And it’s the day that Otilia’s (Anamaria Marinca) college roommate Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) is going to terminate her pregnancy. Under Nicolae Ceaucescu’s strict Cold War-era dictatorship, single motherhood means a doomed future while abortion gets both the medical provider and the expectant girl severe punishment.
What’s a desperate, terrified young woman to do? More importantly in this film, which is seen from Otilia’s point of view, what lengths will a loyal friend go to in order to help her?
This brilliantly chilling glimpse at the flip side of “Juno” not only tells a mesmerizing personal story but also exposes the corruption of a modern sociopolitical system in vivid relief. From the bleakest of settings, mood realism is captured through masterfully unaffected performances and unflinching long takes by director-writer Cristian Mungiu, his inspired cinematographer Oleg Mutu (“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”) and an indelible ensemble.
The horror of the back-alley abortion was never depicted with such clinical or strangely matter-of-fact precision. In this case, the “back alley” is a seedy hotel. The action takes up there after a numbing series of necessary encounters with the black market to acquire the most basic of necessities (even soap) and with the Big Brother bureaucracy behind merely booking a room in a totalitarian regime. The girls don’t flinch, as numb and accustomed as they’ve become to surviving in a society without freedom.
So, though it may shock an American to see what happens next, the girls only react for a moment when they realize the price they will both have to pay the illicit “doctor” Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) for his services. In a place where a woman’s body may be her only viable currency, Bebe seems almost nonchalant about what he is demanding from both girls beyond just cash before he will agree to perform the abortion. His character is fascinating and mystifying in his casual evil — at once the girls’ rapist and their savior.
Though it is impossible to look away, the spare, documentary-style drama is not always easy to watch. Surrounded by a diffident boyfriend, his oblivious bourgeois family and a very cruel world, the heroine seems to be the only sane person when even the friend for whom she risks everything seems to have betrayed her. Besides the psychic trauma the film so effectively communicates, especially through actress Marinca’s heartbreaking expressions, it also actually shows the abortion procedure and, eventually, the fetus.
The title “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” refers to how far along Gabita is when she finally shakes off denial and faces a woman’s most difficult choice. It will be an unforgettable experience, if not a pleasant one, should you make the choice to see it.
‘4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days’
*****
» Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Vlad Ivanov, Laura Vasilu
» Director: Cristian Mungiu
» Not rated
» Running time: 113 minutes
» In Romanian with English subtitles
