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film blog 2
Four months, three weeks, two days tells an abortion story that happened in Romania, in 1987. In 1987, Romania was in the period of post-communism controlled by Nicolae Ceausescu. Under communism, in 1966, in order to achieve the plan for industrialization, increasing the population of the country, Decree 770 was enacted. By enforcing this law, women lose the right to abortion and the use of contraceptives was prohibited. It’s women’s obligation to give birth to the country (Cazan, 2011, p. 95). However, this decree violates the equity and equality of women rooted in the communism value. For instance, some scholars have argued that the commitment of liberating Romanian women from traditional gender roles and gaining access to work is paradoxical with controlling women’s fertility rights (Godeanu-Kenworthy & Popescu-Sandu, 2014, p. 228). The aim of this decree is to further enhance the national dictatorship and increase labor rather than take women’s conditions into serious consideration. Women become instruments of national development and lose autonomy over their own bodies. The state imbued both paternalistic and patriarchal power to oppress women (Gradea, 2018, p. 300). Thus, the historical and cultural background plays a significant role in understanding the two main female characters. The movie reflects the struggles and sufferings of women in post-communist Romania as the representation of life under communism. I’ll choose some scenes to further illustrate the importance of this historical and cultural context to understand this film.
To begin with, it’s interesting to note that the narrative of the film lacks the part of why Gabita chose to do abortion. Instead, in the initial part of the film, we, as viewers, have already in the female college students’ dormitory. A table, a fish tank, two fishes, a burning cigarette, the sound of the clock, Gabita’s nervous facial expression, these all indicate that two female students’ resistance has already started (Fig. 1). The background sound successfully creates an atmosphere of tension. For that period of history, abortion was not only about some wrong and immoral act but also about betrayal and confrontation of the national system.
In the public bathroom of the university dormitory, Otilia is finding Petronela who helps her lies about her menstruation to their lady officer. “I ask you to tell her,” Otilia said. “Yeah, but she said you had your period two weeks ago,” Petronela replied. As Cazan (2011, p. 94) states, in the 1980s, Romania women have to take menstruation check monthly. By conducting this regulation, women’s uterus was under the government’s surveillance. It’s almost impossible for women to abort. Although Otilia is not the girl who will abort, this scene to some extent shows the regulatory monitor of women in that period (Fig. 2).
In order to abort, Gabita and Otilia have to find abortion doctor by themselves, book a hotel room and even endure the sexual assault (Fig. 3, 4, 5, 6). They don’t have enough power to resist Mr. Viorel Bebe’s unreasonable demand. At the same time, in the process of abortion, they have to take a high risk of losing Otilia’s life while being convicted of abortion and murder. As paying off the price of the punishment for defying the regime, the two girls sacrifice themselves with the feeling of fear, pain, helplessness, anger and depression. Gradea (2018, p. 298) also demonstrates that Mr. Viorel Bebe abuses his power, a kind of power that is supported by the legislation. The state has already invaded and violated women’s right to control their own bodies. As he assaults the two girls, he plays a role in law. Thus, the doctor proposes the requirement boldly without any shame. He feels normal to invade and oppress women when mimicking the law’s violence for women. In the film, when he assaults Otilia, Gabita quickly runs out of the door, bursting into tears and sobbing silently. In the bathroom, she opens the tap to cover the sound outside, feeling unimaginable, struggling, anxious and miserable. In a scene that Otilia sits in the bathtub, turns away from the camera, the clock sound starts again. The dramatic tension and anxiety are surrounded in the room. In the matter of abortion, it seems like Otilia only has a little time to review what had happened, trying hard to repress her feelings. Through the whole process, they don’t communicate with each other at all. They save themselves, albeit in a way that destroys them. On the surface, the injurer is Mr. Viorel Bebe. In fact, it’s the tragic result of the government control of women (Palmer-Mehta & Haliliuc, 2011, p. 114).
In Adi’s home, when he and Otilia argue about pregnant, it’s a time for Otilia to release her feelings. She’s been silent for a long time. Those fear rooted deeply in her heart. We don’t know whether she is pregnant in the end, but it’s necessary and reasonable for her to worry about her future. In her view, if she is pregnant, Gabita is more reliable than her boyfriend. She rejects to marry her boyfriend as a solution. She feels despaired with the regulation of compulsory family life (Godeanu-Kenworthy & Popescu-Sandu, 2014, p. 231). These conversations imply the tentacles of fear closed around her body. For being a woman in that historical environment, only women who are in the same situation can understand each other. She is fragile and helpless but still shows the intention to use her slight power to resist the mechanism of society (Fig. 7).
On the way that Otilia throws the baby, every time she breathes, it's like a hammer hitting my heart. The maternal love for a baby that originates from each woman is challenged at this moment. It’s not only the physically resisting the rigorous and inhuman system, but also the psychological torment of being a woman. She doesn’t complete her task to some extent. She is frightened by the dog and the man who passed by. Among their limited options, it’s almost impossible for them to treat the baby simply as an object (Palmer-Mehta & Haliliuc, 2011, p. 117). In that historical environment, the oppression of women is both tangible and intangible (Fig. 8).
Finally, after the abortion, they go to have dinner. I think it’s a metaphor, the necessity of continually living a normal life, totally burying the past, along with their pain and struggle. It’s also ironic. As Gabita tells Otilia “we are never going to talk about this, ok?” Their oppression is silently happening and also silently “disappear”. Cristian Mungiu recreates an almost forgotten, marginalized history for Romania women, bring us back to that time to reconsider the women’s dilemma (Fig. 9).
References:
Cazan, R. (2011). Constructing Spaces of Dissent in Communist Romania: Ruined Bodies and Clandestine Spaces in Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and Gabriela Adamesteanu’s “A Few Days in the Hospital." WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 39(3), 93–112. doi: 10.1353/wsq.2011.0071
Gradea, A. C. (2018). A psychoanalytical approach to Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Journal of European Studies, 48(3-4), 295–307. doi: 10.1177/0047244118801684
Godeanu-Kenworthy, O., & Popescu-Sandu, O. (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
Palmer-Mehta, V., & Haliliuc, A. (2011). The Performance of Silence in Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Text & Performance Quarterly, 31(2), 111–129. doi: 10.1080/10462937.2010.531282