Noy Thrupkaew reviews Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days:
Anyone watching 4 Months ... will heave a sigh of relief that the film does not mug viewers for votes, nor does it read like a pile of field notes from an inscrutable land. 4 Months is staunchly non-polemical, its story inextricable from everyday details filmed with a stylized realism. The opening frames show little of what a more conventional film might depict in its establishing shots -- character, a distinct sense of place, a "beginning" to the story. But the scene's symbolic substance is made nearly too explicit through the fish tank and the disembodied hand holding a cigarette -- 4 Months traces the claustrophobia and alienation of relationships in a rotting system in a cinematic language as harsh as it is effective. Read the rest (and comment) here. --The Editors
