I just wrote in my review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days that Cristian Mungiu‘s film, whatever he may have intended, is “the most persuasive anti-abortion argument in any form I’ve ever heard, seen or read.”

Naturally, alert Right-to-Lifers (like deaconforlife‘s Peter J. Smith and John Jalsevac) are going to write about and promote the film among the faithful when it opens next January, and they’d be dumb not to do that. Mingiu’s film is mainly a lament about a certain inhumanity that prevailed in Communist Romania in the 1980s, but viewers will find it impossible not to feel profound revulsion about abortion by the end, particularly due to a certain closeup shot in Act Three that will rally the Pro-Life troops like no TV ad or abortion-clinic protest.

But I’ll bet that most Right-to-Lifers, who primarily live in the “red” regions, will avoid this film in droves, and not just because this IFC Release won’t find much of a reception among hinterland exhibitors. It’s my belief that most of the Christian anti-abortion crowd — i.e., the ones who voted for Bush-Cheney in ’04 in order to keep Christian values from being weakened or usurped by liberal Democrats — are largely xenophobic when it comes to sampling foreign cultures and their films. Because they don’t want to know from subtitles, 95% of the rank-and-file will not only not see 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days in theatres — they’ll also avoid it when it comes to DVD.

I’l be flabbergasted if my prediction turns out to be wrong. Only one subtitled film in history has won the support of middle-American conservatives, and that was because it showed Jesus of Nazareth getting punched and whipped over 90 times at the hands of the Romans and the bad Jews.