[Pen-l] 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Along with Wall-E, I ordered 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days from Netflix. 
This is a 2008 Romanian movie about the horrors of illegal abortion in 
Ceausescu’s Romania. The first movie was named best animated feature by 
my colleagues in NYFCO, while the second earned best foreign movie last 
year. I had misgivings about both movies, but felt obligated to 
experience what my peers backed with my own eyes.

Just as I am suspicious of any product with the brand name Disney on it, 
I am also averse to any movie that falls within the general category of 
how evil Communism was. Like The Lives of Others, which was named best 
foreign movie by NYFCO in 2007, I didn’t need to watch a movie to know 
that East Germany or Romania were crushing the human spirit and all that 
sort of thing. My preferences are for movies like Goodbye, Lenin, which 
at least tried to humanize the old guard Communists even if they are 
hardly an appeal to overthrow the capitalist system.

Much to my surprise, my misgivings about 4 Months were unfounded, as was 
not the case with Wall-E. Rather than being an ideological blunderbuss 
against Stalinism, the movie is much more a story about two young women 
dealing with a problem that exists in countries ruled by the right and 
the left alike. Although there is clearly an implied critique of a 
social system that operated on nominally egalitarian values, director 
Cristian Mungiu was far more interested in the human drama which pits 
vulnerable college roommates against some completely callous men, 
including the abortionist from hell.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/4-months-3-weeks-2-days/
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