My next film on the topic of ‘abortion in films’ is Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) which discusses the controversial issue of abortion in Communist Romania during the last years of the Ceausescu regime. The film follows two college students, Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) on Gabita’s search to receive an illegal abortion. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a film that leaves the spectator with many questions at the end and pondering the overarching morality question when it comes to abortion and how a friendship can survive dealing with something like that.
The beginning of the film starts off in the dorm room of Gabita and Otilia, in which Gabita is nervously packing for a “trip.” Throughout the next sequence we follow Otilia as she searches for objects Gabita wants to take on the trip. Otilia then goes back to her dorm room where Gabita gives her a stack on money and Otilia leaves. Otilia meets up with her boyfriend who reminds her about the birthday party for his mother, she states that she won’t be able to make it because she will be busy naturally he gets upset and ultimately she changes her mind to avoid further conflict. She then meets up with Mr. Bebe, who is…to put it nicely an asshole and they drive around finally meeting up with Gabita at the hotel. This is where the spectator learns he is an abortionist and Gabita is pregnant. Mr. Bebe examines Gabita and finds out she lied to about how far along she was and becomes upset. He states that moving into the fourth month is considered murder now and tells the girls that it is going to cost more than 3,000 lei for the abortion. They slowly pick up on the fact that in order to get the abortion they must have sex with him so the girls submit to his desires. After sex, Mr. Bebe inserts the probe into Gabita and tells her not to move until she starts bleeding and the fetus comes out, then he leaves. At this point Otilia is upset at the fact Gabita lied but continues to help her. She tells Gabita she must go to her boyfriend’s house for the party but she will be back soon. Once Otilia returns she finds Gabita in a different position and asleep, she informs her that the fetus is in the bathroom. Otilia goes into the bathroom and is in awe of the fetus, she wraps it up and puts it in her bag. She walks around the city and finally disposes of the fetus and returns to the hotel. At the hotel Gabita is sitting in the restaurant and Otilia sits down and tells her she got rid of the fetus and that they will never talk about this again. Otilia then slowly turns her head toward the camera and breaks the fourth wall leaving the spectator with many questions.
Some questions I am left with at the end of the film are, how did Gabita get pregnant? From the start she seemed very organized and smart so the fact that she was not careful during sex makes me wonder what were the circumstances involved? Another question I have is will the girls relationship be the same after this? The ending of the film makes me think that this really imposed a distance between the girls and tore them apart. I feel like keeping such a big secret like this and doing something illegal could really put a strain on a friendship. One of the biggest questions I had at the end of the film was whether or not Otilia was pregnant. Although this is never really implied in the film, she does have the conversation with her boyfriend who is against abortion. In the conversation she does state she is late and constantly asks him what he would do if she were pregnant. This conversation leads into another spectrum involved in abortions.
For me the 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days had two important aspects that are involved in abortions and some films tend to leave out. The first is the fact of the fetus. In most abortion films the female is either sacred out of the abortion or goes through with it and is usually punished (aka with death, examples The Ides of March and Revolutionary Road). Here it is completely opposite, Gabita is fine (somewhat) at the end of the film but what is more interesting is that-from what I can understand- her pregnancy was much more far along than those of the other films and this poses the question of whether or not it is murder. I mean this film actually shows the dead fetus and the disposal of it which is extremely hard to see. I can definitely see the controversy in that because there are studies that show when fetuses are humans etc. From my perspective I was expecting Gabita to be punished for what she had done but she was not and that is very interesting. The second aspect of the film is that of the “abortion warrior” being the male. Although this aspect is rarely left out it is interesting that it was a part of this film. The abortion warrior being Otilia’s boyfriend who is against abortions and his solution to the problem would be to get married and conform to the “making potatoes” lifestyle just like his parents. This is however not what Otilia wants and tells him that if she is pregnant she will take care of it without his help. The fact that she will take the matter into her own hands if it were to happen fits along with the idea that ashamed heroine and the abortion warrior-hero.
The Fade Out: A Movie Blog 