4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

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Grey, dark, gentle, subtle
What if it was true?

Almost no one would answer the question on what would happen if abortion WERE outlawed by the State. Would we jail the woman? Kill the abortionist? 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. Condoms were hard to get and birth control pills were banned contraband. All late abortions, past the 4th month, were treated as murder and both the woman and the abortionist were treated as murderers. Soon after the new laws came into effect, Romania experienced a strong baby boom. A few years later, the birth rate dropped back to what it used to be `before'.

The movie, part of a series of testimonials of what life in Romania used to be under communism, shows what we here like to refer to as a `back alley abortion'. The back alley, in this case, is a hotel room. The abortionist is careful to sterilize his tools, has a pretty good idea of what he is doing, and is a mild-mannered, loving son. He is also demanding some special type of compensation for his services.

Gabriela is a student, is pregnant and she seems to have no choice other than getting rid of the baby. Somehow, Otilia, her roommate and friend, finds herself a lot more involved with Gabi's problem than she expected. An unborn baby dies but Otilia and Gabi are paying a heavy price themselves, as perpetrators and as victims too.

The visual environment and the way characters interact are consistent with Romania's impoverished status back in 1987 - there's little color, little hope. There is a lot of dark, grey and dirt. The few extras we see are small, defeated people performing absurd activities such as wandering aimlessly, lining up in queues or risking whatever was left of their freedom for some meager black market profits. Everyone seems to be depressed, indifferent, corrupt, alone. The little human interaction we can see forces viewers to decide for themselves what the characters real feelings may be. Had this been a Hollywood production, we might have ended up watching a zombie or a body-snatcher type of a movie.

There is very little shouting, expressed fear, panic or physical violence but a lot is implied. Everyone makes small plans because everyone has little control over their own lives. There are hints that a lot of time is spent waiting in lines for food, waiting for the bus, waiting for the summer vacation. There is no room for 'ending hunger' or helping to bring peace, democracy, freedom or universal love to the world. Everyone's dreams tend to involve one's personal survival or little pleasures and one's immediate future.

Otilia's boyfriend's great hope is a one-week summer camp outing, dreaming of the two of them, alone. The reality of his life is that, at 23 or 24, he is as dependent of his parents as he ever was. He stays away from trouble by avoiding it and by avoiding thinking about it until trouble happens. When trouble happens, he hopes that his parents may step in and help or provide advice.

Otilia's own view of a possible future is she following him and making mashed potatoes for him but she is under no illusion that he would ever stand up for her if not doing so was a more convenient 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 Gabriela's friend, she's her mother because she needs to care about someone and because no one else would volunteer, including Gabriela's real mother.

Gabriela, the pregnant one, has given up on almost everything. She seems to be comfortable to allowing`things' to be done for her. She is made pregnant, she lets Otilia arrange for the abortion, she lets the abortionist handle her body, 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 agree to it. In the end, after the baby is aborted she goes down to the restaurant after asking Otilia to give the baby a decent burial - one more assignment. The frightening suspicion is that she probably knew what type of `payment' the abortionist was going to demand but she goes along with it all because that 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. Yes, we know, communism or statism don't kill unborn babies. It's the abortionists and the women who ask for their services that kill them. In fact, in this case, the State was a pro-lifer, all the way and, yet, babies were aborted as a lifestyle choice and no one involved in the process was shown having second thoughts. What we see is a `society' or a nation where meaningful interaction 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 see is a caricature Hobbesian world. All the good pickings were already picked by some invisible entities that are not shown to us and everyone else is struggling for the bones and the leftovers and they are allowed to do so for as long as they are not overtly disruptive to the imposed order. There is no morality, whatever works is good for as long as it works and that includes the choice Gabriela makes to abort because raising a baby was going to demand for a lot more responsibilities and commitments than she was prepared or even capable accepting.

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. It gets stars for courage, for acting for the director's ability to tell a difficult to tell story.

Little notes: there is no overt violence, some nudity but sexual activities are not explicitly shown. The aborted, bloodied fetus is shown. The dialogues are in Romanian with English and Spanish subtitles available.

Harrowing tale of friendship

"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.

Deserving of all the praise
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.

About 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days detail

Amazon Sales Rank: #881 in DVD
Released on: 2008-10-14
Rating: R (Restricted)
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Formats: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Subtitled in: English
Number of discs: 1
Running time: 113 minutes