Time Constraints

Two friends risk it all for an illegal abortion in communist Romania.

by Cindy Fuchs

Recommended

FUTURE TENSE: Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), left, attempts to put her pregnant roommate (Laura Vasiliu) at ease. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

The clock is ticking in the very first moment of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. It's Romania, 1987, and time is running out.

Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) is restless. Introduced in mid-conversation ("OK, thanks"), she smokes a cigarette, idly clears off a table. She's on her way to an illegal abortion, arranged through an acquaintance. Her roommate, Otilia (the astounding Anamaria Marinca), tries to smooth over tensions, purchasing cigarettes and Tic Tacs from the dorm's rudimentary store, passing up the chance to take a kitten back to their room, because Gabita's allergic. While Gabi waits inside, Otilia heads out into the gray city streets, hoping to secure a hotel room, according to the abortionist's instructions.

As Cristian Mungiu's camera follows Otilia during her brief, initial ventures, the context is not quite clear. At the first hotel, no one has a record of her reservation. Why, the second hotel clerk asks, does she need a room if she's a student living in the dorms? Her identification card is out of date, the clerk notes, seeming to recede into the space behind her desk. Otilia makes her way through these serial snags with a certain resignation, tinged with frustration. The systems — all of them — are broken here, during Ceausescu's last days.

At last Otilia finds a room, but soon learns it's not at one of the hotels okayed ahead of time by the abortionist, Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). He looks at her from inside his small red car, his face obscured by shadows and his irritation manifest even from a distance: "Young lady, here's the deal. I have nothing to hide," he tells her, though it's clear he does. "I came in my own car ... but I will say this: Trust is vital. I always meet the person first, to see if we trust each other."

If the setup to this point weren't so bleak, this assertion would be laughable. "Trust" has nothing to do with Bebe's business. The routine he sketches is designed, not surprisingly, to his benefit. And yet the film doesn't so much judge him as observe — at one point, from the car, with Otilia, as he stops off at his apartment to deal with his mother, who's locked out ("The wind blew the door shut," she frets, then tells him "someone called," which only annoys him further: "Don't answer when I'm out!"). Watching from the car, Otilia's mounting tension is visible in the slight hunch in her shoulders, the increasingly taut look on her face. This cannot go well.

Indeed, the film, brilliant and excruciating (and winner of last year's Palme d'Or), builds meticulously to a devastating sequence of events, as Otilia and Gabi soon find themselves inside the hotel room with Bebe, confronting one bad option after another. Preparing his client, Bebe describes each step of the abortion and her body's likely response ("I will insert a probe and it will cause an abortion; yes, it will hurt, there will be bleeding, but it will not require an anesthetic. The pain won't be that serious."). As questions arise concerning the length of the pregnancy ("You're playing games with the months," Bebe snarls. "It's a new offense for the fourth month ... they get you for murder, five to 10 years"), the pale and desperate Gabi can hardly handle the "deal," unable to figure the cost or the changes Bebe makes. As he comes to embody the regime's wide-reaching, ugly and utterly cruel oppression, Otilia, forced to make impossible choices, is not reduced to victim, but appears more a survivor — determined, angry, damaged.

Changes in her aspirations and self-understanding are both agonizing and sudden (the film takes place over a day, more or less). Leaving Gabi alone for a few hours to keep a promise to her own boyfriend, Adi (Alex Potocean), that she visit with his family, Otilia is trapped at the dinner table, barely hearing the conversation as the camera keeps her centered, surrounded by chirpy relatives. In this stunning scene, she comes to see her own risky sex with Adi as yet another form of oppression, born of his ignorance and self-interest. As the day finally ends for Otilia, so, too, does any sense of security or trust.

(c_fuchs@citypaper.net)

Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu

An IFC First Take release