"4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days"

"4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days" is as much a personal story of two Romanian girls as it is a political fable of Romania. Set in 1987, Communist Romania, a college student, Otilia, was assisting her pregnant roommate, Gabita, to have an illegal abortion. As they overcame obstacles and moved closer to performance of the procedure, Otilia internalised the struggle and became increasingly emotionally involved. The experience had driven her to review her own relationship with boyfriend who came from a privileged family.

The characters and the story were well developed. But I feel the real achievement of the film lies in its political commentary focusing on the Romanian society at the eve of the revolution- in two year's time, the Berlin Wall fell and with it the end of communist rules East of the Iron Curtain. In the case, of Romania, the communist regime's collapse was marked by the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu in December 1989. After all, as the end credit suggests, the director had alternately named the project 'Tales from the Golden Age'. Here what I gather, at the risk of reading too much:

Just like other ordinary Romanians, Otilia and Gabita had long been resigned to ordinary life within the communist-ruled society. They were happy to study and work as the Party directed and enjoy the occasional capitalist consumables (cigarettes, Tic-Tac etc) obtained via the black market.

Just like other ordinary Romanians, when Gabita encountered troubles that could not be resolved legally, they resort to underground channel. Whether the matter is satisfactorily tackled, help seekers are inevitably taken advantaged of by the 'service provider' who often practice the same trade in state-controlled organizations. As if it was her second nature, she concealed some facts and intentions even from Otilia.

Otilia too was constantly looking over her shoulders for any government agents or informers. She became even more distrusting of the system when she was invited to her boyfriend's place to attend his mother's birthday party.

At the 'upper-class' family's home, the parents and their elitist friends were dining and chatting away not unlike their Western-Europe counterparts- completely oblivious to the hardships in 'common' Romanian families and pending revolution. Nor do they give much regard to the Otilia whom they deemed as having a different (read: lower) social background.

Otilia finally decided that she should disassociate herself from the elite-class, a social status that, before this dreadful day, she long to be associated with but was now just a disillusion. She ended her relationship and left the boyfriend's house.

Just like other ordinary Romanians, both Otilia and Gabita found it hard to adjust to aborting an ideology that has before been ingrained in their minds. The jarring sense of lack of security was epitomized in the scenes in which Gabita pleaded with Otilia to bury the fetus in way she deemed appropriate and Otilia was roaming around town in search for the appropriate burial place in the cold, harsh winter night.

When she finally returned to met Gabita in the hotel, they found that the restaurant was out food. A wedding party, presumably hosted for the elite class, had just ended and the waiter was kind enough to fetch some of the party's left-over food for the two ordinary Romanian girls who emerged from the topsy-turvy night knowing that they are facing a very different world as before.

Just like other ordinary Romanians, post-Ceausescu.