By chance, I am watching this on Mother's Day. I make no apologies.

This film contains three stunning moments of sacrifice (well, more, really, but three that stood out). The first is when Otilia sleeps with the abortionist for Gabita (who then also sleeps with him). It's a disgusting moment, as the man forces a woman in a moment of pure vulnerability to pleasure him, despite being entirely off-camera. It's the most gut-churning moment of the entire film. It's also the moment that makes it clear how the anti-abortion laws fully put women at the power of men, making it as sleazy and direct as possible.

The second moment is when Otilia goes to her boyfriend's house, despite her awful…

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…

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…

Palme d’Or Winners Project, 2007

This is punishing and unforgiving cinema made without apology. There was nowhere to hide for the average Romanian citizen in 1987 and we are punished with the same rough treatment. Except we have the option to turn away without burden safe in the knowledge that we don't have to sacrifice our own identity in order to get though the ordeal.

Cristian Mungiu's long takes are a challenge to see which of us blink first. There are long moments of reflection and uncomfortable silences that feel truly suffocating at times. It can't be said we don't know where to look in these moments because we have no options. Our eyes are forced into the same condensed…

Winner of the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is set in the final years of Communist Romania and tells the story of two young students named Otilia & Gabita, who are trying to transact an illegal abortion for the latter. When a doctor volunteering to do the then-forbidden job finally comes up, their hope is kindled but once his real motive surfaces, it results in a catastrophic incident that ends up changing the lives of both girls & their friendship, forever.

The plot is very silently structured & cleverly executed while the script maintains an effortless naturalness to keep the drama plausible and writer-director Cristian Mungiu has done a fabulous job in both…

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Film #27 of 30 in my March Around The World | 2015 Challenge
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Little does tech student Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) know what she's getting herself into when she agrees to help get an abortion for her pregnant roommate Gabriela "Gabita" Dragut (Laura Vasiliu). The year is 1987 and Romania is still very much under the brutal control of the Ceausescu communist regime. Penalties for illegal abortions are severe, ranging from three-to-five-year prison terms to the death sentence.

Nevertheless, the two women decide to go ahead with the risky business. They hire a "fixer" named Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), who was recommended by one of their friends. Of course, pretty much everything goes wrong from that point on, but not…

"الصديق وقت الضيق"

هذا ما إقتصر عليه هذا الفيلم بما تعنيه الكلمة!
لم تكُن من ضِمن مشاهداتي من قبل من الأفلام الرومانيه ولكن هذا الفيلم عرض لي فَنهم الأخاذ. التفاصيل المُتخذه بالتصوير كانت مُدهشه وتحريك الكاميرا كان مُدهشاً أكثر! فعلاً أدخلتني بداخل قصة الفيلم واستعرضت لي معاناة المرأة التي كان من المُفترض أن يكون مابداخلها سعاده قد أصبح ألد اعدائها وليس قِطعةً منها. لم يتوقف الفيلم عن إبهاري بل واستعرض لي معاناة شخصية الصديقه التي ضحت بشكلٍ قاسي لصديقتها الجاحده والبلهاء!

مؤامرة منظمه بصمت وتنفيذ بذكاء في حين أن السيناريو يحافظ على طبيعية جهده للحفاظ على الدراما بشكل جداً رائع والكاتب والمخرج كريستيان مونجيو قام بعمل رائع في كل من الإدارات. ويضيف التصوير السينمائي الخام عمق كبير إلى المؤامرة مع…

'We'll never speak of this again..' (Laura Vasiliu as Gabriela 'Găbița' Dragut)

This late '80's-set Romanian drama may not be overtly critical of the soon-to-be removed Ceaușescu regime - the infamous dictator's name is never mentioned - but it is made abundantly clear by director Cristian Mungiu in his choices of what to depict on screen that this is not a happy place to live in; a country where the only way to obtain even the most basic of goods (soap, cigarettes, etc.) is via the black market.

The bleak story concerns the matter-of-fact way naive student Găbița (Vasiliu) goes about procuring an abortion with the help of her university dormitory roommate Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), with events taking place over…

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days could be considered a companion piece of Kieslowski's A Short Film About Killing, for both deal with societal issues of the Eastern Bloc with gritty brevity. Saying that, there are several very long takes in 4 Months that possibly take away from the tense uneasiness of the film's central narrative rather than contribute to it.

Cristian Mungiu's film is at its most darkly compelling when the unsavoury Bebe runs Otilia and Gabita through the potential risks of the procedure. If his crude job goes awry in that grubby hotel room, the consequences are life-destroyingly dire.

At that moment, the film has its fist cranked right back ready to deliver a powerful blow to…