So, several weeks ago I spent some time browsing over MetaCritic’s “All-Time High Scores” list to see how some of my favorite movies from the past decade have graded out compared to the all-time greats. There were some names that I expected to be up there (4. Pan’s Labyrinth 98, 16. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 93, 20. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 92, 22. There Will Be Blood 92) and a few that I didn’t (7. Ratatouille 96, 13. Sideways 94). Although I had seen the majority of the more recent films to make the list, there was one I hadn’t that particularly caught my attention. Sitting in 5th place among all these great movies was one that had been released this year, yet I had never heard of it. Weighing in at an astounding 97 overall was the Romanian drama, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
4 Months was never put out into wide release, but was the 2007 winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or, the top prize of the Cannes Film Festival, and was also named to the top 10 lists of many of the nation’s top critics. All that being said, it should, understandably, come as a surprise that I didn’t particularly enjoy this film.
4 Months has a tight, narrow focus, and for that I give it credit. We meet the characters with their goal already laid out, they set out to accomplish this goal, and afterwards the movie ends. There is barely any background, there are only the slightest of side plots, and the story is direct and realistic, without any hint of allegory or metaphor.
The film focuses on two college girls living in Romania in 1987, near the end of communist rule. Otilia and Gabi are roommates and best friends. Gabi has a serious problem (she is pregnant) and enlists Otilia to help her as she tries to get an abortion. The other problem is that, in Romania during this time, abortion is illegal, but Gabi doesn’t have the resources or maturity level to handle being a mother at this point. Through a friend who had a sister who had an abortion, Gabi has obtained the name of a man who will perform the operation. Gabi is too afraid to go meet the man herself, so she sends Otilia in her stead. When Otilia meets the man, who refers to himself as Mr. Bebe, he is immediately upset because not only did he specifically state that he wanted Gabi to meet him in person, but he also instructed her to make a reservation at one of two specific hotels, which she has also failed to do. Mr. Bebe has a stern, imposing personality whose presence becomes increasingly ominous the longer he is around the girls.
When he learns that Gabi has lied, not only about the money she claimed to have, but also about how far along she was in her pregnancy, the entire operation is almost called off before Mr. Bebe lays out an alternative method of payment which will ask much more of Otilia than anyone can reasonably be expected to do for a friend. Despite this, not having the operation is not an option for Gabi, and what must be done is done. The rest of film details the collateral damage of this event and these decisions. It offers no easy answers or tight resolution, leaving Gabi and Otilia only with the reality of what has happened, and the viewer with only our imagination as to what the future holds for these two young women.
I give writer/director Cristian Mungiu a lot of credit for the level of authenticity and realism in 4 Months. He avoids all clichés and never stretches the truth for the sake of entertainment. In the environment of today’s film industry, this was a bold and risky proposition. He is able to accomplish this, in large part, because of the tremendous performances of the film’s three main stars, Anamaria Marinca (Otilia), Laura Vasiliu (Gabi), and Vlad Ivanov (Bebe). Each of these actors fully captures the essence of the role and seems to have an intimate understanding of the realities of the time. However, while he may have produced a film with an exceptional level of realism, he has also produced one that has an absent enjoyability factor and is nearly totally devoid of entertainment value.
Now, I don’t need explosions, sex, or CGI to find a movie enjoyable, but, to be truly successful, a film needs to be more than just an exhibition of the director’s ability to convey reality. For comparison’s sake, watching this film is sort of like watching a brilliant mathematician solve an extremely difficult proof for two hours, at the end you may come away knowing that what you just saw was an impressive accomplishment, but the total lack of anything to make the presentation entertaining ruins your experience.
Apart from the lack of entertainment, one other aspect of the film that I really disliked was the frequent use of obscenely long, continuous shots. According to Time Magazine‘s review of this film, 4 Months is composed of less than 70 total shots. There are a few of these that are on the border of excruciating, but perhaps the worst of all is the 5+ minute shot of Otilia staring ahead blankly at the dinner table of her boyfriend’s parents’ house. I know that it is meant to show how the events of the film have rendered her almost completely stoic, but we get the point by the one minute mark, and Mungiu insists on forcing us to listen to the boyfriend’s family’s mindless pseudo-intellectual drivel for another 5 minutes.
All-in-all, from a technical standpoint, I can understand how 4 Months could have garnered critical acclaim, but the decries of “masterpiece” and “brilliant” seem drastically overstated. I can only recommend this to those who have a very specific interest in the technical and stylistic elements of film, or those who see a films proximity to reality as the major determinant of success. For the casual movie fan, I’d suggest a pass.
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I agree 100%. I was shocked that this got a 97 on metacritic. I think I liked the idea of the movie more than the movie itself. I’d also suggest anyone who is at all sensitive to the topic of abortion to pass on watching it because one of the “obscenely long, continuous shots” focuses on what’s left after the procedure. A little gruesome, even for me.