Choice Cut

"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile)" is destined to be referred to as "that Romanian abortion movie", so let's get that out of the way right now. Yes, "4 Months" about two women - roommates at a Romanian university - who arrange for an illegal abortion in 1987, when the country was still under Communist rule. The film takes place over one harrowing 24-hour period during which we see in painstaking detail the lengths to which these woman will go for this procedure. Abortions were declared illegal in Romania in 1966, causing something of a population boom until the end of Communism in 1989. During these years, women seeking abortions frequently faced brutal conditions. This film, written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, tells one of those stories.

The title, quite plainly, refers to the length of the pregnancy which is to be terminated in the film - a fact which makes the abortion not only illegal in Romania but punishable as murder. The woman in question is Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), who walks through the film as though perpetually dazed. Gabita, thankfully, has enlisted the aid of her stalwart best friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca, in a vital performance) to stand by her side through this ordeal (we never find out who the father is). Otilia is a whirlwind - reserving hotel rooms, covering to the police and generally problem-solving with an almost impossible resolve. She's like "The Cleaner" in "Pulp Fiction". Through a friend of a friend, Gabita and Otilia have gotten the name of Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), a kind of black market abortionist with an eerie, clinical calmness. Mr. Ivanov's spellbinding performance keeps the first half of the film on sustained pins and needles. Mr. Bebe has clearly done this many times before; there's no question who has the upper-hand in this situation. Where the film goes from here is best left as an unspoiled journey. Suffice to say that "4 months" is a tough, unyielding film that's libel to stick with you for a while.

Mr. Mungiu is part of the so-called "New Wave" of Romanian filmmakers (it seems every country is having a "New Wave" of cinema nowadays). "4 Months" has a lot in common with another fine example of that genre, 2005's equally-gripping "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu". Like Cristi Puiu's engrossing, almost existential, examination of the Romanian medical system, "4 months" tells a dark, harrowing story set against a dismal Romanian landscape. But where "Lazarescu" told its story by hopping from one hospital to another, "4 months" takes place almost entirely in one hotel room - save for an exceptionally awkward family dinner sequence that makes "Meet the Parents" look like something out of Norman Rockwell. "4 Months" could almost have been a stage play, and at times it lacks any urgency outside of that which is inherent to its subject. But Mr. Mungiu, to his credit, resists artificially inflating the material and directs the film with a stark, slice-of-life quality using many long, uncut shots. The result is an immediate empathy for these characters. Gabita and Otilia could be anyone - any woman forced to face impossible obstacles in order to do what she feels is her only choice. Even when that choice has been taken from her.