Dargis on Mungiu's masterpiece
Manohla Dargis's N.Y. Times review of Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is one of the best she's ever written. I haven't been this gob-smacked by Dargis since she wrote three and half years ago about Michael Mann's Collateral:
4 Months director Cristian Mungiu, star Anamaria Marinca.
"In 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a ferocious, unsentimental, often brilliantly directed film about a young woman who helps a friend secure an abortion, the camera doesn't follow the action, it expresses consciousness itself. This consciousness -- alert to the world and insistently alive -- is embodied by a young university student who, one wintry day in the late 1980s, helps her roommate with an abortion in Ceausescu's Romania when such procedures were illegal, not uncommon and too often fatal. It's a pitiless, violent story that in its telling becomes a haunting and haunted intellectual and aesthetic achievement.
"You may already have heard something about 4 Months, which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year, only to be shut out from Academy Award consideration a few weeks ago by the philistines who select the foreign-language nominees. The Oscars are absurd, yet they can help a microscopically budgeted foreign-language film find a supportive audience. And "4 Months" deserves to be seen by the largest audience possible, partly because it offers a welcome alternative to the coy, trivializing attitude toward abortion now in vogue in American fiction films, but largely because it marks the emergence of an important new talent in the Romanian writer and director Cristian Mungiu.
"In interviews, Mr. Mungiu has resisted some of the metaphoric readings of his film (say, as an attack on the Ceausescu regime) and resisted making overt declarations on abortion. I've read more than once that the film is not about abortion (or even an abortion) but, rather, totalitarianism, a take that brings to mind Susan Sontag's observation that 'interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.' This isn't to say that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days isn't also about human will and the struggle for freedom in the face of state oppression, only to suggest that such readings can be limited and limiting. Mr. Mungiu never forgets the palpably real women at the center of his film, and one of its great virtues is that neither do you."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on January 24, 2008 at 5:04 PM
comment #1
actionman
says ...
I absolutely cannot wait to see this film
Posted by actionman
at January 24, 2008 5:31 PM
comment #2
actionman
says ...
and her review of Collateral was indeed amazing. I also loved her reviews for Domino and The New World; that's when I really fell in love with Manohla.
I heard that 4 Months is coming to IFC HD on Demand starting tomorrow...I hope I can find it in my listings...
Posted by actionman
at January 24, 2008 5:43 PM
comment #3
T. Holly
says ...
What a quote whore, "The Oscars are absurd." Love that.
Posted by T. Holly
at January 24, 2008 6:05 PM
comment #4
Walter Sobchak
says ...
Careful, Jeffrey.... people on here are liable to give you shit for posting something that isn't paying tribute to the memory of Heath.
Posted by Walter Sobchak
at January 24, 2008 6:56 PM
comment #5
samizdat
says ...
Wasn't Collateral her NYTimes debut as a critic?
Posted by samizdat
at January 24, 2008 7:02 PM
comment #6
OddDuck
says ...
I've always been sorta ambivalent about Dhargis. Many of her reviews show too much personality, if that makes any sense.
But holy shit, how did I not remember her review of Collateral? I'm just gonna tell myself I missed it the first time around, because that is one of the best written movie reviews I've ever read in my life - and I'm not even a huge fan of the movie.
Her review of 4 Months is also really good work. I'm sure I'm only like the millionth person to realize it, but she's the real deal.
Posted by OddDuck
at January 24, 2008 7:31 PM
comment #7
actionman
says ...
In a world without Zodiac and Jesse James as best picture nominees, I second Manohla: the Oscars are absurd.
Posted by actionman
at January 24, 2008 8:32 PM
comment #8
oakling
says ...
I love reviews that show personality. This is awesome - a new movie to see and a new reviewer to soak in, at the same time!
Posted by oakling
at January 24, 2008 8:49 PM
comment #9
Thrudvangar
says ...
Is Dargis, Sontag's lover?
Posted by Thrudvangar
at January 25, 2008 3:59 AM
comment #10
MikeSchaeferSF
says ...
Actionman: 4M3W2D is indeed available on IFC On Demand starting today. It's not clear whether this was the plan all along or if they switched from theatrical to On Demand after the Oscar snub, but in any case this will be the centerpiece of my weekend.
I was quite smitten with Manohla when she was with the LA Times; in NY she's been kinda hit-and-miss IMHO. But she does get points for dissing Cloverfield.
Posted by MikeSchaeferSF
at January 25, 2008 7:52 AM
comment #11
BurmaShave
says ...
I have about zero desire to see this movie. Sorry, but it's the truth. I've made a lot of conscious decisions to see downbeat and depressing things, but not this time, not this town, not this season. It's just a bit too much. I could be wrong about it? Someone set me straight. Maybe when it hits DVD over the summer. I hope it does as well as it can though. The Romanian film industry is one of the most exciting prospects out there.
Posted by BurmaShave
at January 25, 2008 8:47 AM
comment #12
lipranzer
says ...
I went to see the movie at the IFC theater near me, and about 45 minutes in, I'd say (it was when the abortionist is discussing terms with the two women in the hotel room), a woman behind me started yelling for help, because the woman seated next to her was having some kind of seizure or something. By the time an usher was called in, the woman had recovered, but she left the theater. When the movie was over, I happened to run into the usher as I was leaving the theater, and it turned out she was okay, she just didn't know what kind of movie this was, and reacted to it badly.
I like Dargis as a critic, even though I don't always agree with her, as in this case. I liked the movie a lot (it's replacing INTO THE WILD on my top 10 list of last year), and I think the two main characters are very well drawn, but I think it is primarily about totalitarianism. The reason it works on that level so well is it's about the details of living in that kind of society, rather than the people who enforce it at the highest level. We only see police a couple of times in the movie, and never in an outwardly threatening matter, but the threat is always there, and that's a tribute to how well Mingu is able to create tension.
Posted by lipranzer
at January 25, 2008 4:12 PM