Criterion Collection: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) | Blu-ray Review

The crown jewel of the New Romanian Cinema was Cristian Mungiu’s controversial abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which took home the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (and arrived on a crest of critical applause which had greeted previous titles by his cohorts Cristi Puiu and Corneliu Porumboiu). Revisiting the film over a decade since its release, it remains Mungiu’s most consequential achievement and one whose impact continues to reverberate despite its specific setting in 1987 Romania. And yet it’s a stark, minimalist depiction of twenty-four harrowing hours trying to navigate necessities in the dying days of Ceausescu’s totalitarian state, where lovers and strangers police each other in equal measure while paranoia and repressed trauma are daily mainstays. Shot like a documentary but laced with traces of social commentary, horror and bleak comedy inevitably seep out of the significant emotional wounds inflicted upon its flinty protagonist—a woman who remains a friend to the end.

College student Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) finds herself embroiled in a bit of a dramatic situation as she takes logistical responsibility for helping her friend Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) have an abortion, which was illegal under Ceausescu’s dictatorship outside of incredibly specific circumstances. The trouble is, Gabita has allowed the situation to paralyze her, unable to communicate important issues to Otilia, who she sends to meet the abortion doctor in her stead, the aptly named Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). Trouble securing a room only leads them more easily into Mr. Bebe’s specific scheme of victimization, which causes Otilia to make several unplanned and unspeakable sacrifices for her friend while she’s forced to balance banalities with her clueless boyfriend Adi (Alexandru Potocean).

Several notable Romanian luminaries pop up in the limited supported roles, including Luminita Gheorghiu (of Haneke’s Code Unknown and Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) playing Adi’s mother, and a sinister Vlad Ivanov in one of his most despicable roles as a rapist moonlighting as an abortionist. But the film belongs to Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu as the desperate co-eds, particularly Marinca. Like Mungiu’s 2012 follow-up Beyond the Hills, female fraternity is where he derives potency (something notably absent from 2016’s Graduation, which plays like a throwback to the beginning entries in the New Romanian Cinema). Marinca’s Otilia is at the intersection of the ultimate sacrifice, harried by a pair of hotel receptionists in her request to secure a private location for her friend’s abortion, subjected to sexual assault and then thrust into socioeconomic squabbles with her boyfriend’s parents, all of them defined by the rigid constructions of the Communist regime.

Of course, the film’s infamous piece de resistance is a shot of the aborted fetus, shown in garish, unrepentant detail. While such a grotesque visualization could potentially align with the prolife agenda, Mungiu’s subversive film offers no such justification for the policing of women’s bodies. And in a current regressive globalized political climate, the power of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days seems more pertinent than ever. Beyond its controversial catalyst, however, Mungiu’s film is something much more in its Orwellian depiction of life in a police state.

The connective tissue of the film is all about mobilization and occupying space—a modicum of privacy exists for those who can afford to secure a hotel room, but it’s a struggle to enter or leave. Likewise, a lack of economic mobility provides an additional subtext, with Otilia, who’s studying tech, hailing from the countryside (occupations determine where people would eventually be sent by the state). As evidenced by the birthdaBy party she is forced to attend for her boyfriend’s mother (which includes one of the quietest but most meaningful episodes of isolation and despair while in a crowd), a desperate social hierarchy evolved under the communist regime, with Mungiu suggesting upward mobility as a nigh impossibility.

Disc Review:

Criterion, which recently acquired Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills and Graduation, presents his international breakthrough as a new 4K digital restoration in 2.35:1 with 5.1 surround DTS-HD master audio soundtrack. Oleg Mutu’s cinematography is pristinely restored for this release, a clear-eyed neo-realist exercise of cramped interiors where comfort or solace seem impossible.

Cristian Mungiu:
Criterion recorded this thirty-seven-minute interview with Mungiu in 2016 New York, who discusses his methods for creating the realism of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Jay Weissberg:
Criterion recorded this twenty-four-minute interview with film critic Jay Weissberg, who discusses the film’s place within the New Romanian Cinema.

Cannes Press Conference:
Cristian Mungiu, Oleg Mutu, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov and Alexandru Potocean were on hand for the press conference at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, all forty-four minutes presented here.

The Romanian Tour:
This short fifteen-minute documentary recorded in 2007 is comprised of filmed responses from audience members after viewing 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Alternate and Deleted Scenes:
One deleted scene and two alternate endings (thirteen minutes of footage) are included.

Final Thoughts:

A harrowing and distressing exercise which encapsulates not only the inhumanity of policing bodies but the inevitable degradation when a society attempts to do so, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a formidable and empathetic expression of the necessity for human agency.

Film Rating: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Rating: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆