The Best Films of the Zeroes: 14

14. 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS. (2008)
Directed by Cristian Mungiu

One of the most shocking, powerful and forthright films of the decade, Cristian Mungiu’s film picked up a head of steam when it won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, an award that it thoroughly deserved. This is angry cinema, part of the new movement of Eastern European cinema, raging against their current states of affairs, and the regimes that got them there.

While Mungiu’s film is about a lack of freedoms in Ceaucescu’s Romania, many of the concerns are still relevant today in the Western world. There are still places where it’s horrifically dangerous to consider an abortion, places where women take their lives into their own hands for making that choice. While 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS paints a terrifying picture of what life must have been like under the iron curtain, it asks several questions about life today, all over the world.

At its centre is a phenomenal performance from Anamaria Marinca, who plays Otilia, a young student trying to arrange an abortion for her friend Gabita (Laura Vasilu). The procedure, highly illegal in Communist Romania, leads her into contact with Bebe, a man who promises to carry out the abortion for an extortionate fee.

While 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS works as a drama, showcasing the conditions that young people had to live their lives under in 1980s Eastern Europe, it’s also extraordinarily effective as a thriller. The oppressive sense of tension begins about twenty minutes into the film, not letting up until the very end. Credit must go to Mungiu for this, so skilfully does he orchestrate it. One scene in particular, where Otilia is having dinner with her boyfriend’s family, having left Gabita with the express instruction to telephone her if there’s a problem is an exercise in Hitchcockian levels of suspense. The sound of the endlessly ringing telephone haunted me for days. It’s an extraordinary scene, one of a handful of brilliant moments.

Throughout the film, the friendship between Gabita and Otilia is examined, stringently. Why would Otilia subject herself to the levels of risk and debasement that she does here if not for a lasting bond of deep friendship? Yet, throughout, there appears to be a distance between the two women, which is a cause of yet more tension. We’re never sure at which stage Otilia might just say that she’s had enough of the situation she’s got herself into.

Like most of the best films on this list, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS is an extraordinarily powerful film, a viewing experience that couldn’t be described as pleasant, but one that inspires debate, passion and a renewed interest in film. It’s the best film from Eastern Europe in the decade, and one of the strongest that the region has ever produced.