 ALREADY WINNER OF BOTH THE CANNES PALME D’OR AND THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARD, CRISTIAN MUNGIU’S RIVETING CHRONICLE OF A RISKY ILLEGAL ABORTION DURING THE DARK DAYS OF CEAUSESCU’S ROMANIA IS, QUITE SIMPLY, AN INSTANT CLASSIC.Harried preparations in a student dorm signal that Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) is pregnant and petrified, leaving her more assertive friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) to take the strain of sorting a hotel room and contacting the burly backstreet operator who’ll perform the procedure at a punitive price— and at the risk of all three of them going to jail. Played out over a single day spent dodging the sinister bureaucracy shoring up this paranoid totalitarian state, and rendered with you-are-there vividness as events take in the most Stygian corners of Bucharest’s public housing, the film’s unrelenting drama of survival generates vice-like tension and total involvement with its characters. With long takes sustaining undiluted emotional authenticity, not to mention an uncannily immersive sound-mix, this is unquestionably brilliant film-making, yet it’s far more than a mere triumph of technique. Like its companion piece The Death of Mr Lazarescu, the unshowy yet compassionate observation of character engenders a haunting richness, as Marinca’s startling performance shows Otilia discovering her own sinew in the course of doing her best for her stricken roommate, a flicker of the self-determination later to gather force in the country’s massed political upheavals. Although there are some graphic images here which some viewers may find upsetting, Mungiu keeps the focus firmly on the human cost when a morally troubling decision becomes, through the caprices of historical circumstance, an act of ideological defiance.—Trevor Johnston. |
