Reviews
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days; Back to Normandy; Shot in Bombay
The collapse of Communism sparked a crisis in Eastern European cinema. Deprived of state subsidies, flourishing industries went into rapid decline and only since the millennium have film-makers in the myriad of fledgling republics begun to find a distinctive voice and attract wider critical attention. Predictably, Russia, Poland, Croatia and the Czech Republic have led the way. But Romania is also experiencing a new wave, which is all the more remarkable for the fact that, apart from Lucien Pintilie, the country has produced no world-class directors since moving pictures first arrived in May 1896.
Cristi Puiu set the ball rolling with The Death of Mr Lazarescu, an epic study of the national health service whose triumph at Cannes was followed by Corneliu Porumboiu taking the Camera d'or for the Best First Feature with 12:08 East of Bucharest, a scathing assault on the myth that history is written by the victors that had just been released on DVD. But, good as these films are, they have been eclipsed by Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 weeks, 2 Days, which not only won the Palme d'or at Cannes, but which is also the finest film Romania has ever produced.
Adopting an approach that can best be described as forensic discretion, Mungiu not only explores the emotional trauma involved in having an abortion, but also exposes the corrupt venality of life under the detested Ceausescu regime. Filmed by Oleg Mutu (who also photographed Mr Lazarescu) with a relentless control that captures place, performance and psychology with devastating simplicity, the story of student Anamaria Marinca's bid to help roommate Laura Vasiliu terminate her pregnancy is full of agonising moments, from their encounter with exploitative backstreet abortionist Vlad Ivanov (who insists on sexual favours from both girls before he will even consider taking their case) to Marinca's nightmarish family party when the enormity of the day's events finally dawns on her. But such is the naturalism of the acting and direction that this never feels like recreated reality. Instead, it's a compassionate insight into how humanity somehow manages to survive the vicissitudes, cruelties and compromises of existence.
In 1975, middle-ranking French director René Allio similarly attempted to humanise the grotesque when he released his rigorous adaptation of Michel Foucault's tome I, Pierre Rivière, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister and My Brother... Acclaimed documentarist Nicolas Philibert (guest of honour at OxDox a couple of years ago) served as an assistant on this gritty reconstruction of a true-life 1830s murder and, in the documentary Back to Normandy, he goes in search of the non-professionals who made up the cast, while also seeking to explain why a sensitive country boy might have been driven to butcher those responsible for tormenting his father.
The combination of memoir and historical sleuthing will probably make more sense on DVD later this year. But, following the example of Louvre City (1990), In the Land of the Deaf (1992), Animals (1994) and Etre et Avoir (2002), this is a typically detailed Philibertian profile of ordinary working people contributing towards something remarkable, which is given some additional human interest by the mystery surrounding teenage actor Claude Hébert, who makes a surprise reappearance just as Philibert is readying to wrap.
The unpredictability of movie-making comes in for further scrutiny in Liz Mermin's documentary Shot in Bombay. The son of superstars and a revered 80s pin-up, Sanjay Dutt was charged with the illegal possession of firearms after the notorious Bombay Blasts in 1993. Following the longest trial in Indian legal history, Dutt was due to be sentenced in early 2007, but was also contracted to completing Apoorva Lakhia's fact-based actioner Shootout at Lokhandwala, which was inspired by maverick cop A.A.Khan's ambush of mobster Maya Dolas.
Chronicling the chaos that reigned throughout the filming of a picture on which many big-name reputations depended, Mermin ably captures the surreality of the cinematic process, while also considering Bollywood's relationship with the underworld. But it's her discreet profile of a fallen idol that proves most revealing, as Dutt combines the hangdog charisma of Robert Mitchum with a heroic commitment to his craft in the most trying of circumstances.
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