A while back I raved about The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, noting in particular how despite the bleak portrait of a bureaucracy which bogged the sick and dying down, the film depicted how consistently the humans the doomed Lazarescu came upon connected with him, fell into rich and personal conversations with others around them–in short, how the community’s compassion and connections thrived despite, around, underneath this oppressive system.
4 Months… is the flipside: here, the pervasive systemic bureaucracy and oppression manifest in each person and every interpersonal interaction as an inability to connect, breakdowns of trust, persistent lying, an endless struggle out from under or around rules both large and trivial. There are moments of compassion (a kitten given powdered milk, a bus rider offering a ticket to a freeloading passenger as the official comes around seeking proof of payment), and the film is centered on a roommate going above and beyond to help her roommate get an illegal abortion. But even that central act of compassion is marred by anger, frustration, lies, and–ultimately–a wall between the two women. The final scene (I’m giving nothing away) sits on the two, having endured much, sitting at a restaurant table, one pondering the menu, the other staring out the window–a shot held, silently, for an uncomfortable, meaningful stretch. This film is rather brilliantly done, again in the Lazarescu mode of a fly on the wall, the acting so naturalized, the scenes often playing out in a dazed and difficult real-time. But it’s harrowing, gripping, draining.
I’ve now seen 3 of the films of what some are calling the Romanian new wave (also including 12:08 East of Bucharest), and they are as dazzling and exciting as A. O. Scott raved (in an article to which I’ve linked under the Lazarescu post). I’m kind of fascinated at how a very common stylistic sensibility emerges, despite quite distinct tones: long takes, very precise production and composition yet a filmmaking style that resists showy technique, acting so subtle and precise it seems unacted, and an investment in (or even a reinvigoration of) social realist concerns.
Watched this a couple of days ago. Man, it is a brutally powerful film. Can’t add much more to Reynolds’ thoughts. I think the comparisons with Lazarescu are on target (though there are no moments of human comedy to be had in 4,3,2). This film also reminded me of the best work by the Dardenne Brothers.
well i just saw this — took me 4 days 3 hours and 2 minutes, exactly, which i thought was uncannily fitting.
mike says really good things about this film and jeff’s comparison with the dardennes is v. right. there is a hyper-realism to this and certainly some other films that have come out of europe and east asia (the japanese nobody knows for instance) that keeps me glued to the screen even though for long stretches of time nothing happens. these are films that carry the realism into a certain loving attention to seemingly trivial details: walking the city or using public transit, for instance, figures prominently, but also dressing and undressing, arranging clothes, preparing food, eating, not eating, opening and closing doors, preparing beds. there isn’t much joy and people tend to keep the same blank expression throughout, while all emotion is conveyed by the relation they have with their environment.
in 4 months the camera spends a lot of time on otilia’s face, which is lovely but also, as i said, blank, worried, pale, gaunt. the other few characters don’t get direct close-ups so we end up feeling that we don’t know what anyone except otilia looks like. well, we do have a sense of what the abortionist looks like, but gabita (the friend otilia is helping have an abortion) and otilia’s boyfriend are always taken sideways.
we see a lot of otilia’s body, too, though only once or twice naked. she’s wearing tights and a tight-fitting top all through the movie, and since the camera follows her closely we get a pretty good sense of her body, the shape of her legs, her small breasts, the thinness of her shoulders. her hair, on which the camera dwells a lot, is badly dyed and stringy. i think the idea is both to give a sense of the desolation of soviet romania and to underline the incredible single-mindedness of little, young, yet v. tough otilia in the task of helping gabita.
in fact, this single-mindedness of otilia’s purpose, and the amazing altruism and danger involved, seem to me to contradict mike’s view of the film as portraying detachment or anger. it seems to me, in fact, that this is a film about love in the midst of a cold, sleazy, and decadent environment; about how far one can go for those she’s loyal to. it’s also about integrity — again, i’m disagreeing with mike’s perception of this film as containing a lot of lying — otilia’s not kowtowing to the crassness of her boyfriend’s family, for example, or demanding the same dedication of her boyfriend she herself gives gabita (otilia is herself quite probably pregant). this integrity and dedication — otilia gives just about everything to help her friend, down to the last harrowing scene in which she looks up and down a deserted bucharest in the middle of the night to find a way to carry out her friend’s wishes — stand in stark contrast to the corrupt and indifferent bucharest scene.
otilia’s and gabita’s youth and the fact that they are students seems important to me: they are the new generation, the generation that in a few years will take to the streets and take the country out from under the soviet boot.
SPOILER
i read the last scene differently from mike. when otilia doesn’t find gabita in her room she’s incredibly worried. once she finds her, she has to confront the reality that she has failed her. she asks that they never talk about this again. they sit across a small table in an empty part of the hotel restaurant confronting for the first time in the movie the idea of eating food. they have both been to hell and back but are still together: they’ve made it. maybe, if otilia is pregnant, another abortion will have to take place. gabita will be there, otilia’s boyfriend probably not. there’s nothing to say. in spite of everything — the humiliations, the rejections, the abuse — otilia is back at gabita’s side. she hasn’t abandoned gabita and gabita won’t abandon otilia. there isn’t much more people can ask of each other.
I think your alternate reading is wonderfully clear and persuasive. I think my reading (of a more Hobbesian Romania) is predicated on a contrast with Lazerescu, a film where *everyone* seems willing to go out of their way to try to help the distressed title character. Perhaps I am overstating the contrary in 4, 3, 2, simply because it seemed so different. I like your reading of O and G more than mine, but… even some time later, I seem to recall O being a bit more frustrated with G than you note. Your sense of O’s commitment, ‘though, is very powerful.