by Allan Fish
(Romania 2007 113m) DVD1/2
Aka. 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile
ID please
p Cristian Mungiu, Oleg Mutu d/w Cristian Mungiu ph Oleg Mutu ed Dana Bunescu m none art Mihaela Poenaru
Anamaria Marinca (Otilia), Laura Vasiliu (Gabriela ‘Gabita’ Dragut), Vlad Ivanov (Viarel), Alexandru Potecean (Adi Radu), Ion Sapdaru (Dr Rusu), Teodor Corban (hotel receptionist), Tania Popa (night receptionist), Doru Ana (Benzanirul),
If they were giving out awards for most harrowing film of the year, there could only be one winner for 2007. Cristian Mungiu’s second film is, to put it simply, the best film to come out of Romania, a country that, despite the efforts of Sergiu Nicoleascu and, more recently, Cristi Puiu, had never really managed to provide a great film before (or, if they had, it had never been seen in the west). It was one of the very best of its year and a deserved Palme d’Or winner at Cannes.
Set in Romania in 1987, 4 Months follows a day in the life of Otilia, a young twenty-something student who agrees to help – and help finance – her friend Gabita’s abortion. She arranges an appointment with a sleazy backstreet abortionist, telling him that her friend is only two months gone, but in reality it’s over four. Having originally settled on a fee of around 3,000 leu, because Gabita has lied about how far gone she is, she has to come up with another form of payment. The only one he accepts is the sexual services of her friend, Otilia, who agrees reluctantly to sleep with him. The abortion is then performed and, while Gabita is resting up waiting for the miscarriage, Otilia has to go out to a birthday party with her boyfriend, at which Otilia comes to realise that her own relationship is going nowhere and she makes a quick getaway back to her friend.
The obvious comparison made by many critics was to Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, in that both dealt with illegal abortion, but in tone the two could not be further apart. Despite the brave subject matter, Leigh’s film was a trifle cosy in its nostalgia for the post-war period, and it was primarily notable for its period recreation and lead performances. This may also be a period piece, as exemplified by the military discipline towards IDs drummed into grim-faced hotel staff, but though it does comment on the last years of Ceausescu’s regime, it could just as easily have been set in the present. It has the visual feel of Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu, but is altogether more gripping. It’s as much about extortion and as it is about abortion, and at its heart it’s a story about the lengths to which people go for friendship. Otilia comes across as the sort of altruist who isn’t deserved as a friend by anyone, least of all the thoughtless, selfish Gabita, who thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for her friend to be lied to continually and have to sleep with people to enable her to be got out of her own mess. Ivanov’s abortionist is a truly nasty piece of work, but one doesn’t feel any sympathy for his charge, only for her friend. The director obviously wants us to be appalled not just by the situation and conditions the characters are living in, but also by the character of Gabita, hence the film is about Otilia’s day, not Gabita’s. One feels not just annoyed but deeply frustrated.
Visually arresting, 4 Months was perhaps surprisingly shot on the widescreen in terms of its content, but it does allow the director to frame his characters very deliberately and often at cooling distances. The most powerful sequences are when nothing is said, most appallingly when Otilia rushes into the bathroom without bothering to put her underwear back on to quickly flush the vile Viarel’s semen out of her with a showerhead. For her part, though Vasiliu is fine as Gabita, this is Marinca’s film in every way. It’s an astonishing, agonised performance. Anyone who saw her superb debut work with the ubiquitous John Simm in TV’s Sex Traffic (winning a TV BAFTA) knew of her quality and capacity to register suffering, and if she doesn’t quite suffer to that degree here, she still singles herself out as one of the finest young actresses in world cinema. The title, of course, refers to the period of Gabita’s pregnancy.
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Another of those well talked films that I ended up watching in HBO, just like “The Lives of the Others”. I find those two movies in the “enough” category, which I explained in the “TLotO” entry about a week ago (or maybe more, I don’t remember). Those movies that are good acted, good shot, good pace, everything’s superb and perfect, but the little thing that ends up appealing me was missing. Maybe it was the coldness of the whole situation, no matter how warm I ended up understanding the friendship relation between these two women.
I don’t know, sometimes I fail to see the high praise in some movies, which I still like, but not at the level of the “official critics”, as I like to name them. It has happened with this movie, TLotO, “The Class”, “Gomorra”, etc. This whole trend of de-attachment is really getting me in my nerves, next time I just won’t like the film. De-attachment was a thing that Brecht experimented with in his plays, and he was at the top of that game about almost a century ago, now it’s just feeling tired, I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, trying to find warmth in an inhuman thing like film.
Jaime, I very much agree with you here. I found 4 Months tediously didactic, and the austere aesthetic that he went for completely stripped it of any personality or surprises. I thought this was a film that took a political point of view, much like Live of Others, which critics were going to agree with 99 percent of the time. The money shot of the bloody fetus was also gratuitous and really MADE THE POINT for anyone who had fallen asleep by that point in the film.
I found this film neither tediously didactic, nor did I feel that the deliberate style required “personality” or “surprises.” And it’s austerity for me was riveting.
The critics and discerning cineastes got this right, (as they did THE LIVES OF OTHERS)
As Movie Man notes, it deserves to be higher in pecking order on this countdown, though Allan’s love for the film has been well conveyed here.
A truly excellent film. It should probably be pointed out that the titular stage of pregnancy complicates matters as well, even for those who are generally pro-choice (recall that Roe v. Wade also does not permit, in theory at least, unlimited abortion beyond the first trimester). The film does not circumvent this – showing us the disturbingly human-looking fetus quite different from the mere cluster of unfeeling cells terminated in the vast majority of early-stage abortions. This adds another level of complexity to the already harrowing, morally provocative film.
Not surprised to see this on your list, but a bit surprised not to see it higher.
Good points, MovieMan. I think the film is pro-choice, but with very sad, very clear eyes.
Like JAIME, I saw thos one on cable as well. However, I caught it by surprize one night, aimlessly surfing the channels. I guess because I knew nothing of the film I was at once arrested by its style, frankness and, ultimately, it honest drama. To each his own, but I have to side with SAM and JOEL here. I felt the film very good and, upon investigating the title on the internet, found that the lions share of critics had the same reaction as I did. Now, I know that doesn’t make things right, but I have to think when 99% of the films viewers are responding in the positive the nay-sayers become the minority. JASON/JAIME, honestly, I think you missed the boat here. This film was deeply affecting. I happen to be pro-choice and even I was moved by the argument brilliantly portrayed on the screen. IMO.
It doesn’t have to be about a political opinion, it’s about a connection with me, talking to me in a way. Themovies that are favorites for me are the ones that have made an impresion in its plot, its aesthetics and last in something I can’t describe and it’s different for each movie, and I just couldn’t find it in this movie.
JAIME-I think that’s unfair. Film can be exceedingly warm. Film, like an artists brush or a writers pen is an extension of the artists mind and soul. Look at Chaplin’s CITY LIGHTS for example. That cold thing called film exudes not only genuine but, in that classic silent’s case, a pure streak of genuine love. That film can stir the emotions of its viewer is warmth enough alone. Like any great art form, the truly great pieces will hold a mirror on ourselves and our beliefs and lives and make us look deeply into them. Maybe THIS film didn’t come off as warm to you. But, I don’t think you should label something as cold just because of one bad experience.
Oh I can tell you already it wasn’t a bad experience, and I liked this movie, a lot actually, I just don’t think it deserves that much praise, I personally gave it a (9/10), being that personal touch that would warm my heart the one that could make it up to a 10 and then into my best of the decade ranking, I made a top 100.
Also, DENNIS and JAIME because a piece of art leaves you ‘cold’ doesn’t mean it isn’t fantastic. A film like this (about late term abortion) should leave one cold…. art should come in all ranges of the temperature spectrum.
that and I personally think the phrase ‘it left me cold’ is second only to ‘ the creator/director/author is misanthropic’ in the critics bag of overused cliche sayings.
Again, it seems that you think I saw the movie and found it bad, my only sin must be that I didn’t gave it 5 stars, but 4 and a half. I never said it left me cold, now to think of it, it did, but it wasn’t a bad thing, I was thinking about the “coldness” of the whole movie towards its subject, as I said, a deattachment, something Brecht did much better.
Fair enough, and I didn’t mean my comment to come out so pointed to you to both… more as statements I feel in general, and directed it to all.
you seem to agree with my comments on ‘cold’ anyways.
I too like this film, and thought it would rank a little higher, but as Sam point’s out you can tell that Allan really cares for it from this superb essay. Also I realized it just came before THE FOUNTAIN, ANTICHRIST, MESRINE I and II, and just after INLAND EMPIRE so it’s not like it’s getting jipped–rather we are just getting into the meat of this countdown and this decade produced more fantastic films then many realize (working on my list of 50 it just hit me too).
I always found it interesting that this film came out (and I say them both around the same time) as JUNO did. Both concern a handling of an unplanned pregnancy and the aftermath, one real one rather fake.
Ironically, I watched both this film AND Juno back to back for a class on pregnancy and abortion films. I think I could sit through Juno again, even though I found its ending pat and the dialogue too twee for my taste, but I could not endure this film again. That is not to suggest that I did not like or respect it, more that 4 Months is emotionally draining. I connected with the characters to such a degree that I grew angry with all of them. I am unsettled every time I think about this film.
I’m pleased and surprised to see it ranked so highly.