The Romanian Embassy launched on Monday night the week of Romanian movies in Tirana, bringing a selected collection of cinematographic productions to the screen of the Black box hall in the Academy of Arts. The movie that opened this series was a very special one. Scriptwriter and director Cristian Mungiu in the film ‘4 months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days’ presents the picture of illegal abortions during the late 80s in Romania. The movie tells the heart-breaking story of a university student trying to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy with the help of her roommate. The central character of the movie is the room-mate itself that is forced to go through a lot of troubles, including selling her own body, in order to secure the money for the abortion. The movie has provoked reaction and remembrance of the practices use din communism when abortions were illegal, prompting a dangerous medical black market to offer ‘the service’ under illegal settings. Cristian Mungiu’s intentions about the movie seem to have been wider: “I didn’t want to make a film about abortion or communism; I think that my film goes beyond that. There are allusions to communism such as in the scene over a meal. Abortion is a good example of the influence propaganda and education had on us, even if we didn’t realize it at the moment”, he explained in a press conference in Cannes.
The movie will compete for the Oscars category of Foreign Films. This is not the first international success for Romanian cinema that saw another movie, “The death of Mr. Lazaresku” of director Cristi Puiu and treating the hospital system deficiencies, hitting the headlines two years ago.
Mungiu
The director was born in 1968 in Iasi, Romania. After studying English literature at the University of Iasi, he worked as a teacher and as a journalist for some years. He studied directing at the University of Film in Bucharest, where he graduated in 1998. He is the first Romanian director to win the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, for ‘4 months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days’ (2007). The award was handed to him by the well-known American actress Jane Fonda. Back home in Romania, the director received a medal from the president and the key to his hometown after his Cannes’ victory. “I had the experience of working on a film for somebody else, on a foreign production. They were very nice people, but I discovered it is very difficult for me to have somebody else interfere with my film. I wouldn’t like to work on anything unless I have complete control,” Mungiu has said on his personal style of working.
Abortions and
communism
It is a well-known fact that contraceptives and abortions were forbidden in the communist era in most of the countries that applied the doctrine as a political system in place. The only exceptions were rare cases when the child threatened the life of the mother and that had to be verified by a panel of doctors. The rationale was to increase the labor force of the communist patria, to have as many future soldiers, field workers and power plant engineers as possible. The rationale was backed by the desire or necessity one could argue to be self-sufficient, to complete all potential labor market -the term being an oxymoron in a central planned economy- gaps with resources from the ‘glorious communist nation’ itself. Punishments for the crime included harsh sentence sin prison especially for the perpetrators, the doctors. As with every other forbidden thing this law created the grey space of initiatives to seek alternative ways. Desperate young girls, mostly students or poor mothers with extended families, sought out doctors nurses and mid-wives that were ready to perform an abortion under dire conditions for a little extra money. The process was dangerous and cruel and the instances in which it all ended wrong have been frequent. Outside medical proper conditions the abortion process- a very difficult and delicate medical intervention in itself even under the best conditions- claimed the live of the mother together with that of the baby.
The Albanian experience is very similar to that depicted in Romania. One of the best-known Albanian writers, Diana ȵli in her book” Dreri i trotuareve” (The deer of boulevards) depicts a similar scene where a young student loses her life trying to have an abortion
Other movies
The Romanian movie week brought other important realizations as well such as ‘Orient Express’, an adaptation of the well-known novel; ‘Ɓnd everything was nothing’ of director Cristina Nichitus, a psychedelic drama that examines the social dynamics of rural life and spiritualism; “A roof overhead” of director Adrian Popovici pondering over mental hospitals system and ‘One night love” of director Florin Kevorkian a psychological thriller.
