4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
June 17, 2008
by Adam Suraf
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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days June 17, 2008
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Anamaria Marinca is a revelation as a frustrated college student arranging
an illegal abortion for her selfish best friend in director Cristian
Mungiu’s much acclaimed Palme D’or winner, a central work in the
burgeoning Neo-realist cinema of Romania.
In the waning days of the communist regime (“Romania, 1987”
says the simple inter title) two college friends desperately try to
arrange a black market abortion nearing the crucial calendar cut-off
(hence the title), but roadblocks, including the securing of a proper
space, and a menacing and matter-of-fact abortion provider (Vlad Ivanov),
prove the illegal task almost impossible.
The tension of Mungiu’s brilliantly realized screenplay comes in
the way he photographs Marinca, in excruciatingly long single takes,
usually of long or medium shot, as the pressures of her duty as a friend
to secure the abortion, clash hand in hand with both her personal safety
and social responsibilities of a relationship with a frustrated boyfriend
(Alexandru Potocean). The long takes help to enhance the mood, be it the
awkwardness of a dinner party, or the painfully disturbing revelation of a
bathroom floor bundle near the climax, while the seemingly natural
lighting, drab interiors, and rigid bureaucracy, from buying smuggled
cigarettes to securing a single motel room, suggest a country struggling
to advance in an age of modernity.
by Adam Suraf |