Surfing the New Wave of Romanian Cinema
The 2007 Palme D’Or winner comes from Romania. It’s probably not a terribly exciting fact, as film buffs will have been aware of it for months and the more lay film fans won’t really care too much about it. But in its home country, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days left many people in a state of bedazzlement – and a pleasant one, if I may say so.
It seemed like something peculiar might happen at the prize ceremony ever since Cristian Mungiu’s film was first screened at the beginning of the festival. The buzz was really good, but most would have thought it far-fetched to actually put money on it. By the time the big night had had its turn and Mungiu his award, the whole Romanian media was stunned by the film’s success. There was finally a reason to awake from the grave of perennial moral deprecation in order to actually write and talk about something worthy on its own behalf.
4, 3, 2 is the only Romanian film to have won the Golden Palm, but in context it is the pinnacle of a film scene that has been totally revived in the last five years - and the prestigious French festival of cinema was one of the first to notice. Cannes had taken a liking to Romanian movies ever since The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (d. Cristi Puiu) received the top prize in the Un Certain Regard category in 2005. It was then followed by 2006’s wins of Doroteea Petre (Un Certain Regard – best actress) and Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (Golden Camera and Label Europa Cinemas prizes) as well as both Mungiu’s and Cristian Nemescu’s wins in 2007 - the latter, sadly deceased, won in the Un Certain Regard section with California Dreamin’ (Unfinished). These awards come to confirm not only a certain penchant for anguishing realism the “French” juries tend to have, but also the high calibre production values of this new, young generation of filmmakers, born and bred in the old communist block.
Cristian Mungiu, 39 years old, was at his second feature film, after 2002’s West (in its Romanian title Occident), an excellent comedic take on contemporary Romania. However, the Palme D’Or winner is as far away from comedy as they get.
The story of two student girls (Gabita and Otilia), one of whom is pregnant, takes place in the late eighties, when abortions were considered illegal, and it portrays in a vivid and blunt fashion the ordeal through which many women had to go through between 1966 and 1989 (actually, Ceausescu’s decision to interdict abortions turned against him at the revolution, as most of the people who took a stand for freedom in it were part of the generations born immediately after ’66). That about summarizes the idea that lies behind the film – the first in a series planned by Mungiu about life in communist Romania - but it is the raw performances of the lead actresses and harsh truths that it offers which stick to you once it’s finished.
Gabita is played by Laura Vasiluiu, while the part of Otilia is taken up by Anamaria Marinca, winner of the BAFTA best actress award in 2005 for her performance in the Channel 4 production Sex Traffic. Personally, I think there is really little to say in a review about the film, because it’s just such a tremendous experience – even if not a joyful one.
Beyond the heaps of praise that it garnered, the fact is that 4, 3, 2 managed to fill the dusty cinemas of Romania with eager and expectant viewers, an impresseive feat given the desolation that normally fills the movie theatres. Moreover, because many cities didn’t have any running cinemas left, Mungiu and his crew went around with the film and projected it for anyone who was interested in watching it.
In the 15 cities it stopped and 3,200 kilometres it travelled, the 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days Caravan afforded 18,000 people the chance of seeing what is widely considered the best Romanian film of the decade. It surely wasn’t as fancy as the 19th October premiere at The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival, but it meant a lot for many people.
Perhaps it’s just one of the weird paradoxes of our contemporary, media-driven society that people came to fill Romanian cinemas for a film that is such an opposite of a crowd pleaser – and maybe there’s something to be learned from this which could benefit other good films that are often overlooked because of the inconvenient themes they treat.
Whichever the merits of Cristian Mungiu’s movie may be, it has one that outranks them all: it made a film become something more to many of the people it was about. And hopefully, it remains just one of the many significant tales of cinema that are to come.
