Toronto and NYFF preview. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

"Just like The Death of Mr Lazarescu and 12:08 East of Bucharest, [Cristian] Mungiu's debut feature [4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days] is first and foremost a performance piece," writes Noel Murray. Also at the AV Club: "4 Months unfolds like one of those street-level Dardenne Brothers movies (Rosetta, L'Enfant, etc)," writes Scott Tobias. "But just as often, Mungiu keeps the camera running for much longer than other directors would, usually in tight, constricting spaces where the audience can feel the characters' anxiety grow deeper."

Updated through 9/27.

Mungiu "simply puts his camera in exactly the right spot and lets the scene unfold," writes J Robert Parks. He, too, is reminded of the Dardennes, "though stripped down even more to the basics of character and dialogue. But what dialogue! Exploring the themes of trust, responsibility, friendship, truth, and sex, the film is rich, dense, and compelling."

The film, "set in 1987 and centering on the efforts of two female students to procure a pregnancy termination for one of them, is a remarkably engrossing and thoughtful picture, beautifully rendered in an artful mode of realism," writes Premiere's Glenn Kenny.

"The work is steady, controlled, disciplined," writes Jim Emerson. "And, like several impressive films at this year's Toronto Film Festival (including No Country for Old Men, Chop Shop, Persepolis, Paranoid Park) it chooses just the right moment to cut to black at the end. (That's a favorite device of mine, and it seems to be quite popular about now.)"

"Mungiu's work as the film's screenwriter and director is without fault; he trusts his audience enough to let them work out lapses on their own," writes Ali at Cutting Room Reviews. "Brimming over with sympathetic (but not saintly) characters and a demandingly entangled (but not overstuffed) narrative, Cristi Mungiu's acclaimed film is a rarity."

Cinematical's James Rocchi talks with Mungiu.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes.

Update, 9/27: "Masters of horror should marvel at Mungiu's masterful deployment of red herrings," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant. "Like Death of Mr Lazarescu, which is only outwardly about the difficulties of securing health care in modern-day Romania, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is an allegory that speaks to the struggles of freedom fighters gripped by the terror tactics of a political machine."

Posted by dwhudson at September 23, 2007 3:04 PM