“4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days”
“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” is a Romanian film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. The 2007 dramatic and thrilling production features Anamaria Mrinca as Otilia and Laura Vasiliu who plays Gabita. The film is set in Communist era of Romania in the late 1980s. The timing shot for this analysis 00:01:03 – 0:06:30.
After viewing this portion of the film, I finally grasp the meaning of the popular literature concept of the term mise-en-scène (commonly referred to as “putting on stage”).Indeed, the scene in the timing contains certain objects that are crucial in developing the plot and theme of the play. The shot occurs in an uncomfortably overcrowded boarding room. There is a fish aquarium (with two orange fish swimming in it) on a table made a mess of dishes, papers, and a smouldering cigarette in a ashtray. A hand reaches out for the cigarette amidst the movement of the camera that reveal two students in a congested room who are planning to help each other procure an illegal abortion. The girl smoking is Gabita and her friend is Otilia (she has dirty blond hair). Otilia is going to help Gabita get rid of the developing child in her womb. By the way, abortion is not only illegal but also an extremely dangerous undertaking in the 1987 Romania. At the start, there is no much of sound except that of a ticking clock and a rare low-spirited exchange between the two characters. Through the window, the camera captures falling snow. It looks like it is winter.
Let’s first look at the cluttered table and its content; the tiny ticking clock, the smoking cigarette, stack of seemingly study notes papers or some form of old newspaper, and the aquarium and its two fish – doesn’t the odd fish bowl smell metaphoric? I think so, but we may have to halt that for now. The environment in the room depicts a section of humanity that’s living in poverty. As the camera projects them in our frame of view, the two young ladies embark of wiping the table clean by removing all objects on it except the odd aquarium. Gabita wipes, folds, and stacks the plastic tablecloth in an open suitcase on the bed. In her small errands out of the room, as captured by a marvelous over-the-shoulder long shot while walking the corridors of the dormitory towards the end of 00:01:03 – 0:06:30, we hear someone informs Otilia that Gabita’s father was visiting that day – on the same day the Gabita is going to have an abortion.Based on Gabita’s response, the scene amplifies the theme of poverty among the women folk in the communist society. The poor girl fishes out the plastic tablecloth from the suitcase and re-spread it on the table as though she was preparing to host her father over a six-course meal! Could she have intended may be to pack the plastic cloth for some other purpose? Probably yes. It turns out later in the movie that she would require the plastic sheet to avoid soiling the room as she could experience serious bleeding during the termination of pregnancy process. It is a sad and hopeless day when the purpose of a plastic, flower-print tablecloth is to catch the stains of abortion. Added to that, the fish in the aquarium is an imagery representing how women in the communist Romania have been trapped and brought under subjection by the authority.
Well,on a quick note, before coming to the relationship between onscreen and offscreen space, let us catch up with the character movement in the space. “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” is constituted by aesthetically flowing camerawork that combines rigorous framing and sustained long shots to allow the viewer catch a clear glimpse of the image. With focus on Otilia, the protagonist in the film, we see the director of the movie keep her steadily locked in the camera sights as she cruises the long dorm halls. Through her, we sample an unforgiving real world complete with worn-out rooms, worn-out lives, and black-market deals. The urgency in her steps and the worry in her face allude to the direness of the situation in the setting. Meanwhile, the silence, grim, and grief-stricken facial expression of Gabita speaks loudly of the communist system’s distrust and contempt for its people. Basic needs range from proper accommodation, adequate food, to freedom of speech and the right to make conception choices. These basic rights are trampled underfoot by a brutal autocratic leadership. In regards with the on screen and offscreen space, the falling snow represents the cold world that freezes every aspect of a woman’s life in a communist state (Parvulescu, 2009).
The lighting and camera position plays a significant role in linking the setting,characters, plot, and theme to the understanding of the film. The grimy furnishings of the dorm’s infrastructure conspire with the darkly lit hallways to portray the artless real life that the citizens of the communist Romania of 1980s are facing. Inadvertently, the minimalist lighting approach adopted by the film director is a clever way of displaying items common in the specific time period. At the same time, the lighting style does not distract any significantly from the characters.
Besides lighting, Cristian Mungiu blended long static with handheld mobile camerawork in capturing the scene in the 00:01:03 – 0:06:30 episode. In alternating the camera strategies, Mungiu helps to keep the atmosphere tense and anxious even as he tracks the protaginist ’s (Otilia’s) actions in trying to solve a wide range of ordeals.The period specific shots underlines the difficult time within which the women live in a draconian government system. The long takes allows the film maker to present vividly the emotional condition of the actors. Also, the camera on dolly frenetic technique applied in following Otilia’s in her errands within the dormitory’s corridors does not only create smooth horizontal captures; the technique also highlight’s the actor’s relentless sense of urgency in a gutsy do-or-die performance.
By maintaining a suitable distance from the subject, this type of scene-capturing plays important role in enhancing authenticity of the story since the viewer can testify of justifiable degree of honesty with the story.
References
Parvulescu, C. (2009). The cold world behind the window: 4 Months, 3Weeks and 2 Days and Romanian cinema’s return to real-existing communism.Jump
cut,51.
Screening:Mungiu, C. (2007). 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Romania: Mobra Films, CentrulNaţional al Cinematografiei.
