[Film Review] '4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days'

After the success of Canadian film 'Juno' last year, this exceptional and confronting Romanian film hit international cinemas at a pitch-perfect time. Both films deal with the issue of teenage pregnancy, though whilst 'Juno' is set in an advantaged, middle-class family environment, '4 Months, 3 Weeks And 3 Days' finds it's protagonists in communist Romania, with not nearly as many choices.

The contrasts further reveal themselves as Juno, with her family in tow, patiently shops around for the perfect couple to adopt her baby... a world away from Gabita, the pregnant lead of '4 Months', and her friend Otilia, whom, alone, are desperately trying to arrange an illegal, and very dangerous, abortion.

I think we know where I'm going with this: 'Juno' is a cute comedy; '4 Months' is a raw tragedy.

The catch-phrase slogan of '4 Months' reads, 'How far would you go for a friend?', but I feel the subtext in this movie reflect a wider struggle, a struggle that asks the question; 'How far must a woman go because of a man?' How marginalised is the destiny of a woman under a patriarchal legal system?

Before seeing this film, I had felt that the most powerful movie I had seen in recent years was undoubtedly 'Hunger' (2008), which covers the IRA hunger strikes in Belfast's Maze Prison during the early 80's. After viewing '4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days' though, it is clear to me that for all it's gritty courage and bloody persecution, what gave 'Hunger' a weighted sense of poignancy was, in fact, just that: pathetic and pointless testosterone-fueled madness; flawed males rebelling against a flawed male system. '4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days' strips itself of all that ego, and what remains is an uphill battle against patriarchal oppression, defiantly pushed along with the love, self-determination, and quiet intelligence inherent in femininity.

'4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days' was released in Australia in 2007, and is now available to rent on DVD.

[Course Impression] International Film History

Wow, had a great class tonight for my international film history course. David Stratton took us through a selection of Australian films of the 1980's, until we arrived at the feature film for the evening, which we watch in its entirety. Tonight it was a movie made in 1989 called 'Sweetie', by director Jane Campion (of 'The Piano' fame). Anyways, as a special treat, David had brought in Jane to watch the film with us and then chat about it afterwards. Long story short, the film was really bloody impressive (particularly as i have rather ignorantly kinda shunned the Australian film industry up until quite recently), and Jane was really lovely and more than willing to share her thought-processes. She discussed the cinematography, the casting, the themes, and the poetic nature of the subtext.. but just when i had closed my notebook thinking it was pack up time, this was her answer in regards to the thinking behind her choices of soundtrack music:

"Look.. the thing is... some of the best art is done without philosophy.. and instead by just connecting with what is human"

I dove back into my bag and jotted that quote down, cos i reckon it's a really important point. Cos whilst educating yourself on the various philosophies within the art realm is great to develop a sense of history, and therefore a foundation from which to grow from... at the end of the day, if you don't connect with your true human side, all that you are going to express is simply textbook and derivative.