056 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)

Retro Grade Podcast

“WE’RE NEVER GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS, OKAY?”

On this week’s episode of Retro Grade Podcast, we talk about 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, from Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu starring Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu. Over the past few weeks, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, giving states the ability to make abortions illegal to millions of people. We wanted to watch a film that covered that same scenario, and try to see the challenges that those characters went through to try and get an abortion. We go over the story, which see’s Gabita trying to get an abortion during the1980s in Romania where they are illegal, and what her friend and roommate Otilia does to help her. We cover the setting, the structure, pace, tone and see how they all add to create a thriller that resembles a few other films that we have talked about on this podcast.

We cover how the film was shot, with many long takes to add to the realism of the film and how the cinematography was used to put the viewer directly in the head of Otilia as she is constantly running into obstacles. We talk about the themes of the film, not only about what it says about abortions, but about oppression towards woman, the tactics some men will use to establish dominance over women, but also the camaraderie and friendship that will arise between women when facing oppression.

Towards the second half of the episode, we begin to go over the real life setting that the film is based on, how Romania fell into economic turmoil, and how this lead to Decree 770, the decree by communist Romanian government of Nicolae Ceausescu. It restricted abortion and contraception, which did double the birth rate in the first few years, but would also increase the death toll of women from having illegal abortions, and increased the number of orphans in the country.

We also try and see why so many films about unplanned pregnancies were released in such quick succession during 2007 (Knocked Up, Juno, Waitress, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and lastly Revolutionary Road). This is the most difficult film we have covered on the podcast, but thankfully we have a special guest that will help shed even more light on this topic, Victoria, co-host of the Impure, Rethought podcast which covers how purity, patriarchy, and profit have shaped Western culture, be sure to give them a listen!
Music is from Triune Digital and audio clips pulled from movies we will be reviewing in other episodes.

Artwork by @jannelle_o