4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

A visceral and emotionally draining experience. Those are not typical superlatives one usually conjures while commenting on a movie, yet in this case I dare use such a characterization as a positive rendering of what I felt when watching this film.

The spartan and minimalist style of the movie only adds to its potency. Though many might find it jarring to sit through, I can only hope that people will have the patience and resolve to watch this brilliant example of movie making. If you invest your time and emotions in this one, you will not be disappointed.

The acting, camera work, cinematography are of the highest quality, especially given the budgetary restrictions and scarcity of available resources.This movie is yet more ample proof that one does not necessarily need a 200 million dollar budget to make a great film. Creativity and originality can add untold dimensions to any physical limitations and barriers.

All in all a great "little" movie about a forgotten slice of history, a little known place and, a time of horrifying brutality and oppression i.e. the so-called Golden Age (epoca de aur), Romania and Nicolae Ceausescu. This movie, "4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile/4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is the first installment in a proposed trilogy entitled "Amintiri din epoca de aur/Tales From The Golden Age".

I'm looking forward to the next chapters...

Excellent, engrossing movie. Shot, as far as I could tell, with one skillfully deployed camera, every composition had to have that camera perfectly placed. It's no mean achievement to have risen to this challenge so well. There's one scene in particular, set at a birthday dinner, which is breathtakingly well done with the camera static and the actors brilliantly positioned around it, managing in spite of this limitation to not only give all the necessary information, but also to do so with the maximum emotional intensity.

The subject matter doesn't make for comfortable viewing. But it is essential to engage with it. This film tackles it head on. Don't miss it.

I'm in awe with 'realist' films, especially the one that actually works such as this one. In the climax track shot of walking through the city at night, how do they stage all the noise, the dog, the cars, the everything? It's crazy that i'm super impressed by how organic and realistic it is. Which is odd, because usually i go to movies to see how clever a filmmaker can be with twisting reality. But this was clearly magic to have been able to present a simple act (walking) in a simple composition (face dead center), with all of the familiar elements of nighttime in the city, and brought it all together to heighten the experience of this girl carrying what it seems like, all the worry in the world. It brought me back an almost childish/immediate feeling of being afraid walking alone at night, but of course compared to film, i've never walked alone at night with that much at stake.

But this is where the movie is most successful, the film presents you with people living in a type of harsh system that i can't imagine here living in the states. But the feelings and emotions that are portrayed are universal, the feeling of being young and afraid, feeling of sneaking behind the law, risking something for your friend , feeling of regret. And in this film the moral compass is clear, they know the system is unjust and they do things out of love and care for one another.

But for us here in the states, where government and law has seeped itself into everything, where we don't sometimes realized our own systematic oppression, how much of our sense of right/wrong is driven by government and the law? how much of it is actually driven by love and passion for real people?

The story is a very simple one. It's 1987 in Romania and abortion is illegal. Pregnant student Gabita and her roommate Otilia check into a cheap hotel where a backstreet abortionist called Bebe is going to deal with Gabita's problem. Under Romanian law, the degree of illegality depends on how long Gabita has been pregnant: on this subject, as on most others, she is worryingly vague. Very cleverly, the writer makes Otilia, the more resourceful of the girls, the protagonist. Otilia needs all her courage to deal with the suspicious hotel staff, to meet Bebe's demands, to evade the police and jail. The obvious words to use are spare, direct, realistic. The suspense generated is astonishing. The question of whether abortion is right or wrong is irrelevant to the psychology of the film - all that matters is that it is dangerous. I have great sympathy for all those Romanians who have written comments on this site, complaining about the portrayal of their beloved country. However, I believe that this film reflects well on Romania today. It's certainly a much more sophisticated and honest film than Vera Drake, which was hideously sentimental.

It's 1987 Romania under the brutal Ceausescu communist dictatorship. Gabita (Laura Vasliu) is more than 4 Months pregnant and she's desperate for a highly illegal abortion. Her friend Otilia Mihartescu (Anamaria Marinca) searches all day setting up the abortion with Mr. Bebe. He starts complaining about them not following his instructions and demands more money which the girls don't have. Then he wants sex from both women as payment. After the abortion, Otilia has to go to her boyfriend's family dinner while Gabita waits in the hotel for the abortion to take hold.

This Romanian indie is done in long extended shots. Some of them are slow but mostly, they are very engaging. Some of them are harrowing. It takes its time to get to the point of the movie. The world in this film is a cold hard place. The style of the film only adds to its harshness. There is no pretty camera tricks or beautiful shots. It's a bleak film of a bleak world. The acting is natural and stark. The movie follows Anamaria Marinca. She is mostly unemotionally as she quietly suffers the indignity of Bebe. She shows that she has a good range and she's compelling as the lead. Laura Vasliu's role is a minor one where she can be more emotional. The movie is unrelentingly in its casual bleakness.