Hilda
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is directed by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, it won him the Palme d 'Or at Cannes Film Festival, as if the French New Wave are making a comeback. As it won the top prize at a prestigious European film festival, the Romanian art-house film's market shifted from domestic to global.
The director uses a lot of minimalist approaches to tell the story, which causes the over-interpretation of the cross-cultural context indirectly (Oana, G., & Oana, P., 2014). The film uses a lot of long shots and symmetrical composition to express the story, rather than relying on spectacular shots changes or emotional music as traditional films do. The film's minimalist aesthetic encourages viewers to interpret the story through their own cultural and political leanings. For example, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days itself, an exploration of Romanian individual and collective memories of communism, is transformed for American audiences into a controversial film about specific individual choices in the liberal capitalist paradigm (Oana, G., & Oana, P., 2014). Otherwise, for a Chinese audience, the setting of the story has echoes like time again.
The first 15 minutes of the film recreate the look and atmosphere of student dormitories in Romania in the 1980s accurately. Cameras take viewers through cluttered dormitory rooms, long corridors, and shared shower stalls. Socialist Romania in 1987 was relatively poor and the supply system was still in place. Chinese viewers can notice that Otilia has to go through the black market several times to buy Kent cigarettes. Moreover, the hotel attendant's attitude is insolent, the accommodation hotel needs to check the reasons in detail, everywhere needs to show the certificate. This is almost the same situation in China in the 1970s and 1980s. In the second half of the film, Otilia goes to her boyfriend's house to celebrate her boyfriend's mother's birthday. The whole shoot begins with Otilia sitting down beside the table, and she has to listen to what the guests say. From this, audiences can learn that Romanian college students are assigned jobs by force when they graduate, parents are happy that their children do not have to be assigned to the countryside, school couples are confused about the upcoming graduation choice, and they do not know what to do when they face separation. In the context of the situation in that time, it is difficult for young people under the socialist system to have the right of self-choice. Romania is caught between the traditional culture of Western Europe and the radical and revolutionary unity of Eastern Europe. In addition to the depression caused by the backward level of economic development and the lack of materials, this kind of perplexity imposed on the people at that time was probably another kind of depression. The similarities between pre-revolutionary Romania and China 30 years ago are striking. Especially when the relatives are sitting around chatting, as if a bunch of Chinese are speaking Romanian.
As Otilia steps out of her familiar dormitory territory, the film becomes more critical. In the dormitory area, there are many features of communist utopia (Constantin, n. d.). It felt like a united world, with girls sharing their washing areas and everyone willing to share their possessions. However, these naive elements highlight the hostility and exploitation of the outside world. The role of the doctor is typical of his insatiable greed. He even asks two girls to have sex with him in order to pay for the operation. In front of the two girls and his mother, he used fierce words and regarded himself as superior, but in front of the hotel attendant who asked him to put down his ID card, it is a reflection of his poor pride, which is twisted and distorted by the social system. Let's look at the scene of the birthday party again. This dinner is a microcosm of the society at that time. City people and country people, intellectuals and country teachers, doctors and workers, even men and women, are divided into two different classes. The year 1978 was the twenty-second year of Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship over Romania. The film is a true and powerful representation of the era occupied by the dictator.
Although it evokes 1980s Romania, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is not a straightforward narrative. It avoids focusing too much on the ideology of the socialist era and instead develops the story and characters. It is an angry denunciation of the distortion of basic human values, and it is not an indiscriminate critique of communism or anti-communism. On the other hand, Summer Palace by Ye Lou, a Chinese director who participated in the same Cannes Film Festival, the movie intend to describe the political issues in the times, so it labeled as a political metaphor inevitably.
The film takes the performance of silence, which requires the audience to take the initiative to understand the history and culture behind the film. Silence, and its accompanying, is seen as a condition to be overcome, especially an injustice to be corrected (Valerie & Alina, 2011). When the audience takes the initiative to understand the background of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the film's choice of "decontextualization" makes sense. It is the film's minimalist aesthetic that encourages the audience to understand its historical and cultural significance with their own values (Oana, G., & Oana, P., 2014), so understanding pre-revolutionary Romania is of great significance to the understanding of the film.
In general, Romania in this film, and China in the past, have taken some mistakes from socialism, and these anachronisms have led to personal tragedy. I believe there have been many similar stories in China about personal experiences and unpredictable life choices caused by certain public system taboos.
Reference list
Oana, G., & Oana, P., (2014). From minimalist representation to excessive interpretation: Contextualizing 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Journal of European Studies, 44(3), 225-248. doi: 10.1177/0047244114524148
Constantin, P. (n. d.). The cold world behind the window: 4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days and Romanian cinima’s return to real-existing communism [online]. Retrieved January 8, 2021, from
https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc51.2009/4months/
Valerie, P., & Alina, H. (2011). The Performance of Silence in Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Text and Performance Quarterly, 31(2), pp3-20.
