After the fall of Communism in 1989 Romania & a decade of struggle due to the post-revolution after-effects, a new breed of filmmakers started what soon turned out to be the resurgence of Romanian films in world cinema that has greatly impressed the film critics & viewers around the world over the course of the new millennium. And leading this cinematic wave & the most notable testament to Romania’s renaissance & steady prominence in today’s film world is none other than director Cristian Mungiu’s sociopolitical drama, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days which not only qualifies as arguably the finest film that Cinema of Romania has offered us so far but is also one of its decade’s most accomplished, powerful & haunting works of cinematic…

Abortion is horrible, but so is policing women's bodies. Mungiu effectively gives a middle finger to both sides of the debate, creating a cruel atmosphere where pro-life exists under the insidious creep of an Orwellian state, and pro-choice is visualized in the most graphic, heartless and unrepentant of details. Fuck both sides. Humans don't know how to be free without fucking themselves and others up, nor do they know how to benevolently rule over others without abusing their positions of power. Totalitarianism is evil, but human choice can be just as bad.

This film jaaaaaaaacked me up. 

Bleeds wretchedness on all fronts. A timely reminder of what freedom looks like in the face of state oppression, and the depressing consequences…

Students Otilia and Găbița share a room in a Romanian village. The latter appears, at the beginning of the films, to be pregnant and the former is busy trying to arrange an illegal abortion to help her friend. She rents an hotel room where a doctor will perform the operation, but things turn out more complicated than planned, especially as the baby is not two months in development, as Găbița claimed, but well over four (as the title suggests). 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won Best Foreign Language awards all over the globe and, to top it all, the prestigious Palme d’Or as well and that in one of the strongest years of modern cinema. Those accolades are…

Romania in the late 80s presents itself with very interesting topics. Having been beleaguered by communism for twenty-something years, those last few knockings of Ceaușescu's mandate were very stern to the population. Indeed, everyone who's lived back then will tell you about the wages and how everyone was obliged to contribute with their work-force, thus resulting in a low percentage of the population being out of work, but I digress. There are lots to talk about here, as what Mungiu's craft does, is put on film how dire the situation was. Do bear in mind that this is a singular case. 20th century Romania is a treasure trove for propping up a movie plot. From our arguably greatest poet being…

Achieves one of the more artfully minded executions of character subjectivity; it’s easy to see why the contemporary European art house circuit has so obviously tried to pull of the same kind of docu-fiction handheld when the results are this striking. 

Mungiu sits a head above the rest in how precisely framed his compositions are when the camera does settle. Because this is mostly from the focus of the character of Otilia, you’ll notice how she’ll occupy the center of the frame constantly throughout, given ample opportunity to do so with all the sequences that play out in hallways, roadways, hotels, and dinner tables. And when the point of view does change, it’s done with the expertise of a football…