‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ has been released on DVD and has been named the winner of BBC 4 World Cinema in 2009. The director of the movie is Cristi Puiu and the leading actress – Anamaria Marinca does a brilliant main character.

The story is simple, set on the background of communist Romania in 1987 (the hardest times under the regime). A pregnant student decides to have an illegal abortion after 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days of hesitation. In order to have the abortion, her friend helps get the money for the intervention and also book a hotel room where to have the abortion. She is recommended a seedy man who does illegal abortions and in the end they find a room in a hotel and get there.

The film had two scenes rather hard to watch: the first is the scene when the seedy man is explaining what he will do and suggest safe actions if complications appear after the abortion.

The second hard scene to watch is when the aborted foetus is shown on the bathroom floor and the camera lingers for seconds over that failed being. The pro-lifers might not enjoy the movie but the film does not advocate abortion either. The opinion of the judges before awarding the BBC 4 prize was that the film offers an image of a society. Until 1990 abortion and contraceptive methods were forbidden in Romania but this did not stop the illegal and risky abortions done by non-medical people. It created a whole generation of unwanted children. This phenomenon (named as the biggest demographic experiment of the 20th century) is also described in a documentary called “The children of the Decree”.

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