4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)
Original title: 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile
by Renato Butera
It seems like the countdown to the descent into hell for Otilia and Gabita, two young roommates at the Student House, but it is what it actually is: the duration of Gabita’s pregnancy. The action takes place over the course of several hours, not even a full day, consistent with the Aristotelian unities of time and place. The tragedy is served like a plate of “meat and offal,” leftovers from the anonymous wedding banquet that takes place amidst meals, arguments, and reconciliatory dances, in the drab setting of a hotel.
The context is Ceausescu’s Bucharest, though the signs of it are scarce, with the exception of one long shot of a city neighborhood and fleeting metonymies of the lax control by ticket collectors, receptionists, police officers, and stretcher-bearers. Despite the context, this is a universal story that could be set anywhere. The film is composed of seven sequences, all shot in long takes of varying lengths, with a handheld camera that follows or precedes the more “dynamic” protagonist, Otilia. The shots are extremely tight, almost claustrophobic, where the story unfolds mostly through weak narration, with dialogue dominating over action, and long, still close-ups highlighting the emotional and painful state of the characters.
The first four sequences set the context and the environment: they introduce the protagonists in their physical and relational spaces. The Student House, with the room shared by Otilia and Gabita (the small tank with two goldfish symbolizing their fate), the narrow corridor allowing interactions with friends and colleagues and leading to the shared bathrooms and the “black market” rooms of other students. The university, where Adi is waiting for an exam and an invitation to his mother’s birthday. The two hotels, the first where the reservation is not accepted and the second where Otilia secures a double room. The meeting with Bebe and the scolding from the man to his mother. The humiliation suffered in Room 206. The birthday dinner at Adi’s house. And finally, the return to the hotel, with the wedding banquet lingering on the margins (but giving meaning to what was experienced at Adi’s house with his family friends), the expulsion of the fetus, the breakdown, and the silent dinner.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is an unpleasant and shocking film, but it evokes pity and demands compassion despite its rawness. Once again, the human factor takes center stage in a terrible portrayal of humanity. The viewer is invited to endure the unendurable (due to the intensity), mixed with the deep discomfort that the story provokes. But the discomfort does not come from the staging or the story itself. It arises from the intolerable malice that human creativity is capable of conceiving. This malice is hard to “abort,” despite the fact that the film tells the story of an illegal abortion carried out in the sordidness of an oppressive and dark environment, amidst the moral filth of a sleazy and hypocritical abortionist who dares to exploit the girls’ guilt to abuse both of them.
The disbelief in what is about to happen is not only felt by the two victims, who suffer the humiliation of sexual violence, but also by the viewer, fully aware that they cannot intervene to stop the despicable exploiter’s intentions. The anxiety that builds is as acute as the suspense in a Hitchcock film. However, while Hitchcock’s films generated suspense through images and editing, here it is driven by dialogue within long, fixed shots.
In Room 206, a tragic ritual unfolds in a succession of humiliating actions and desolate reactions: the scolding, the deceit, the abuse, the humiliation, the abortion, the disbelief, the frantic cleansing to wash away the violence suffered, and the agonizing confrontation between the two friends. The drama culminates with Mungiu focusing on Otilia’s profile in close-up, having sacrificed herself for her friend, while Gabita’s responses are delivered off-screen, reminiscent of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. The film does not need music; it relies on the sounds of life. Only at the end are there the songs of a wedding party that ends in a quarrel. The film touches on three serious and delicate themes: abortion, marriage, and the dignity of women seeking emancipation.
Mungiu asks the viewer to stay close to the protagonists, to accept them as they are, and to consciously consider the pain they endure in a society that deprives them of their personality and dignity, of their ability to make responsible decisions for themselves. The birthday dinner is symptomatic of an obtuse, snobbish intellectual bourgeoisie, accustomed and emptied of values and worth, as revealed by the banality of the many topics discussed during the meal. The brilliant choice to exclude the self-righteous from view with a stationary sequence limited to the two protagonists and his parents emphasizes that mediocrity must remain off-screen. The space feels like one dedicated to a performance, where once again human misery takes the stage, life in its harshness and flatness.
The return from hell lies in Otilia’s compassionate disposition toward her fragile friend, and in the gaze that observes human and social meanness before engaging every viewer with eyes turned toward the camera. The viewer cannot distance themselves from this cinematic present in which they are questioned: what do you think? It’s a gaze that doesn’t ask for mercy or pity. It’s a look at humanity corrupted by evil that refuses to be redeemed, remaining both accustomed to and numbed by human pain and misery. In the end, Otilia, with the strength of her character, has triumphed over the humiliations she endured. Her gaze invites us not to judge based on self-righteous logic.
Cinematografo, July 16, 2024
