'4 Months' Raises the Iron Curtain on Abortion
Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
The word "abortion" puts many people on edge, but director Cristian Mungiu wanted viewers to experience what it was like to try to get one in a country where it was illegal. The result is 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a film that follows two Romanian college women in 1987.
Gabita lies to herself and those around her about her pregnancy, until her friend Otilia comes to understand what's happened and bails her out. The film chronicles the women's struggle to obtain an abortion for Gabita, from their surreptitious efforts to book a hotel room to the procedure itself, and while the images — including a shot of a fetus on a bathroom floor — may be shocking, nothing in 4 Months is overdramatized.
Mungiu won't go into personal details but says his film is based on the experience of someone he knows. He says half a million women died getting illegal abortions during the reign of Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu.
The country he shows is a place of dark hallways and cramped rooms. As the two women pack for their meeting with the abortionist, one scrounges for cotton balls and soap; the other hunts through the echo-y halls of the dorm and the crowded common bathroom for a hair dryer and cigarettes.
Mungiu says he wasn't thinking about issues like the end of Romanian Communism or even abortion when he was making the film; rather, his approach was dictated by the story, not a message.
"I try to just choose the scenes which are going to be allowed in the film, considering just one thing," he says. "Would this reasonably have happened, and does it make sense to the story to keep it?"
Despite Mungiu's subject matter and his decidedly uncommercial approach (he uses long, unedited takes throughout the film, with some scenes running 10 minutes without a cut), 4 Months has been one of the most popular attractions at film festivals, winning the top prize at Cannes. General audiences in the U.S. will get a chance to see it as it opens in theaters over the coming months.
Comments
Discussions for this story are now closed. Please see the Community FAQ for more information.