Set in 1987 Bucharest, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days captures an underbelly culture in the final leg of Nicolae Ceausecu's leadership in Communist Romania.
Director/Writer Mungiu developed the script after fifteen years of being haunted by a story of a woman's illegal abortion experience. He mentioned in an interview (Special Features) that he did research to see if the experiences of these women were unusual. Quite disturbingly, he found many parallel situations had developed in previous years.
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The film drew me in with consideration of the filming techniques- a bit raw, bumpy- straight forward. The characters are developed in the first frame. Two gold fish in a cheap tank- which needs more water. A cigarette is curling smoke- a hand extends in from out of the frame to pick it up. The viewer follows a tech student, Otilia, to barter for cigarettes, soap and tic-tacs.
I found myself particulary drawn to the mundane, trivial events encapsulating the hushed tension and fear in Otilia and Dragut (the friend having the abortion performed).
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As an American viewer, I developed a fascination with the beautiful linguistic confusion of the Romanian language. I picked out distinctly Russian and French diction with a tone and flow of Italian. Romania represents the merger of three cultures: Central Europe, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Through the language alone, it is quite clear that you cannot categorize Romania into any of these, rather that is is influenced and built through all.
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--->Perhaps one of the most curious aspects of Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, is that movie theaters are not commonplace in Romania. In a country of roughly twenty-two million, there are around fifty total. The crew involved in the film put together a thirty-day tour, that took them all over the country, to share the film to as many people as possible. Viewers were interviewed revealing that some hadn't seen a film in a theater for up twenty years. The reactions were varied: from tears, to relief. Many stated that the events were very much a part of the Communist era.
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