Professor Perez Tejada
English 1102 Section D2
March 3, 2009
Reactionary Realism in Romanian Cinema
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu are recent Romanian films that have won numerous international awards including the “Un Certain Regard” and the “Palme d’Or” at the Cannes International Film Festival. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days tells the story of two college roommates in Ceausescu’s Romania who try to perform an illegal abortion. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a dark comedy about a dying man’s journey though Romania’s modern hospital system. Despite having different subject matters and belonging to separate genres, the ascetic realism in 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu distinguishes the films from conventional world cinema and older Romanian movies. By exploring the elements of mise-en-scene and the cinematography in both films, one can understand how 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu create a realistic narrative. Furthermore, the stark realism in the films can be given further significance by comparing them to the ideological and metaphorical films from Romania’s socialist era.
When questioned about the purpose of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, the director Christian Mungui responded, “My attempt was to be very honest” (“AFI Fest: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”). When interviewed about his views on cinema, the director of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu Cristi Puiu answered, “For me, cinema is less an art form than a technique for investigating reality” (Cummins). Due to their similar views on the purpose of cinema, the directors use similar settings, décor, and props to create an authentic reality for the audience. For example, the opening image of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is a shot of a college dorm room. The room conveys a cold, austere aura with the frost-covered window, the bars on the heater, and the tiled floors. None of the colors are exaggerated; the curtains, the tablecloth, and the wall paper all blend into a white background. The character Gabita wears a worried look on her pale face, clenches her right hand on her leg, and nervously plays with a cigarette in the other. Through this image the audience gains a clear sense of Gabita’s apprehension and begins to actually feel her uncertainty.
The opening image in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu utilizes dreary props and vapid colors to swallow the audience in Mr. Lazarescu’s depression. Pots, dishes and half-eaten pieces of food lay scattered throughout the kitchen. The cat Mr. Mr. Lazarescu is feeding seems more dead than alive, and the yellow paint on his walls is dull and lifeless. Both of these images are designed to absorb the audience with the implicit emotions of the films. Furthermore, the props Mr. Mungui and Mr. Puiu use are carefully selected in order to convince the audience that they are seeing a story not apart from reality. For example, the director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days shows actual products form Ceausescu’s Romania to immerse the audience into the story: “Another wanted to know how Mungui found the brands of soap, gum, and other items that had been staples of the Ceausescu era.” (Scott). If one item did not belong to the era, then the spell the movie places over its audiences would have been broken. These elements of mise-en-scene help convince the audience that the movie screen is a truthful representation of the real world.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu make the same cinematographic decisions in order to build a truthful perception of time and space. More specifically, the manner in which the films were shot provides little space between the characters and the audience. For instance, both films rely on ten-minute long shots to capture the slow procession of time. In 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, there is a long scene in which the camera follows the main character Otilia through the dark streets of Bucharest as she tries to dispose an aborted fetus. During the shot, the audience sees Otilia staring down dark street corners, nervously asking strangers for directions, and cautiously peering behind her back. For ten minutes, the scene subjects the audience to Otilia’s rapid breathing in order to connect the audience with her fear. These elements and their slow procession build exasperating levels of tension, and the tension is not released until the ordeal is over for Otilia. The audience is not granted the luxury of objectivity.
In The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the long shots emphasize the slowness of Mr. Lazarescu’s death and highlight the apathy of Mr. Lazarescu’s doctors. For example, the first scene of the movie follows Mr. Lazarescu as he roams aimlessly through his apartment and vomits on himself. During the shot, the audience begins to view the world through Mr. Lazarescu’s eyes, and as a result, the audience becomes frustrated with the continued absence of the ambulance. Both films also rely on natural lighting in order to effectively recreate reality: “I needed… (to) recreate the atmosphere of the time… I did everything in natural light as possible.”(4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days). In 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, the cinematographer Oleg Mutu only uses supplementary lights to occasionally light half of Otilia’s face as she travels the streets of Bucharest during the night. This is done in order to recreate the dark streets of the Ceausescu era and envelop the audience in the darkness Otilia contends with. For The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the same cinematographer relies on the lighting in the hospital in order to bring out the whitewashed walls and the moribund atmosphere of a Romanian hospital. The cinematographic elements of these two films force the audience to experience the apprehension, the frustration and the fear felt by the characters in the movies.
When the directors discuss the honesty that they want their films to possess, they are espousing an idea greater than an artistic vision. They are attempting to be respectful and honest about Romania’s history and culture: “There is almost no didacticism or point-making in these films… there is an impulse to tell the truth…its motivation appears to be as much ethical as aesthetic” (Scott). During Ceausescu’s era, the Romanian public had few movie choices. Most of the movies seen by Romanians were propaganda films championing the cause of socialism. These films were highly symbolic and metaphorical and told the audience how to think. The new generation Romanian of filmmakers explores their history in a fashion that completely contradicts the propaganda of the past. For example, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days makes no overt statement about the morality of abortion. The film simply follows the story of two college roommates trying to perform an illegal abortion. Any attempt to present an argument in the film would only repeat the mistakes of the past. It would also be an insult to the Romanian women who actually experienced the event. The honesty found in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu examines the shortcomings of Romania’s developing medical system with dark, comic humor. None of the doctors or nurses who treat Mr. Lazarescu should be considered evil. Their faults are intrinsically human: vanity, indifference, and irresponsibility. They simply accept the fact that Mr. Lazarescu is dying and pass him on to the next hospital with out any regard to the man’s self-respect. By focusing on the realism in their films, the directors of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu not only create cinematic masterpieces but cultural means to explore Romania’s dark past and its present direction.
Work Cited
“AFI Fest: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” www.variety.com. November 13, 2007.
http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007
Cummins, Mark. “A Painful Case: A Conservation with Cristi Puiu.” April 2006. Film
Society of Lincoln Center. http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/ma06/cristipuiu.htm
Scott, A.O. “New Wave on The Black Sea” New York Times. January 20, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Dir. Christian Mungui. Perf. Anamaria Marinca,
Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov. BAC Films, 2007.
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