Movies: January 2008 Archives

Formally precise, thematically incisive, and altogether unnerving, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a bravura piece. With this tense dramatization of the events surrounding an illegal Romanian abortion (circa 1987), director Cristian Mungiu shows how the Communist regime's intrusive, overweening laws created an environment of not only paternalism, sexism, and physical danger but also outright exploitation. (Abortions themselves were no picnic either, as he’s keen to demonstrate.) Talk about body horror — combining social melodrama, character study, and hair-raising thriller, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a riveting ordeal in three parts. You can’t watch, but you don’t dare look away.

You could make a case for U2 as the most overdocumented rock group in recent history. Not only does ample concert footage exist from each period in the band's evolution (starting with 1983's Red Rocks video, Under a Blood Red Sky, which established the band as a premier arena act), but the band even had its own theatrically released rockumentary, Rattle and Hum, back in 1988. Some two decades later, the band has a somewhat longer-toothed demeanor -- there's nothing in U23D that's as fiery as Bono's famous "Fuck the revolution!" declaration (directed at the IRA during a performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday") from Rattle and Hum, and the band slides easily into a formidable but ultimately comfortable groove. If you're looking for moments of real excitement or spontaneity in performance, well, you'll certainly have to look to a band with a less rigorously choreographed sound-and-light show.