Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days"" is a movie about the termination of life in a world drained of it. The movie deals with illegal abortion, yes, but it is apolitical. Here, abortion is a metaphor for a truncated, cold landscape, stunted by years of Communist rule. The setting is 1980s-era Romania, still unable to anticipate the impending wave of democratic revolution. This is a humiliated and starved country, where college students live in perpetual fear of relocation to rural areas, navigating the black market is essential and abortion is completely illegal.
As the film opens, the world-wise college student Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) is arranging an illegal abortion for her roommate, the helpless and terrified Gabita (Laura Vasiliu). The abortionist, Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), is distant and calculated. He has a temper, but keeps it mostly dormant. He is annoyed the two girls could not obtain a room at his preferred hotel, and that Gabita sent Otilia to meet him instead of coming in person. Performing an illegal abortion, he implores them, is about trust - about doing what the abortionist wants - and in Romania, any lapses in trust could result in long prison sentences.
He discovers that Gabita is further along in her pregnancy than reported, more than four months, requiring a more complicated procedure. The girls offer him more money, but he demands sexual favors instead. They have a deal. After perfunctory, soulless sex with the two girls, an abortion is indeed performed. Mr. Bebe leaves, never to be seen again, leaving Gabita and Otilia to wait for the fetus to expel - a tortuous waiting process which dominates the final half of the film. Are you uncomfortable yet?
There is the overarching sense, watching ""4 Months,"" that we are unnaturally privy to the most private experiences of human life. An abortion is none of our business, after all. We feel almost guilty spying on such a private affair, as if we are the Communist police state, peeping in on Gabita and Otilia. The film is indeed shot as if the actresses are being spied on; Almost no lines are spoken into the camera.
Gone from this movie is any sense of hope, anything transcending gloomy despair. This is a film of long corridors, panting walks through the dark, unspeakable pain, unbearable silences - oespecially silences. The master brushstroke comes late, when Otilia briefly leaves the hotel room to attend her boyfriend's mother's birthday party, and the film, previously marked by long stretches without dialogue, is suddenly full of bubbly and awkward dinner conversation. Here is how some people cope with the suffocating hell around them - by filling the air with white noise. We have been waiting the entire film for spontaneous human dialogue, and when it comes it is empty and false. The filmmakers' point is clear: There is truth in the silences, whether or not we like it.
So, yes, ""4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days"" is disturbing, cold and sullen. It wants to be, because at a basic level, it cares enough to tell the truth: that abortions happen, that people take advantage of others, that for many people throughout time, life has been both cruel and absurd. Sometimes there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes there is just silence.
