Romanian film, on UK newspaper’s list of movies that defined a century of European cinema

Cristian Mungiu’s 2007 film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days has been included by British newspaper The Observer on a list of “must-see movies that have defined a century of European cinema.” The films on the list were chosen by five Observer’s film writers: Simran Hans, Wendy Ide, Guy Lodge, Jonathan Romney and Mark Kermode.

Mungiu’s film, the winner of the 2007 Palme d’Or, is presented as “pretty much the archetypal film from the Romanian New Wave.”

The film, written and directed by Mungiu, follows two students, roommates in a university dormitory, as they try to procure an illegal abortion in the final years of the Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania.

“Mungiu’s deliberate pacing exerts a sense of mounting dread; the fiercely unsentimental approach makes for a bruising, yet utterly compelling viewing experience,” Observer wrote on the film.

The Observer list also includes films such as Jean Vigo’s 1934 L’Atalante, Federico Fellini’s 1953 I Vitelloni, Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 Persona, or Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 Stalker.

The full list can be read here.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days also won a host of international awards, including the European Film Award for Best Film later that year and several Gopo awards, the awards of the Romanian film industry.

After winning the Palme d’Or in 2007, Mungiu returned at the Cannes film festival on several occasions, each time winning awards for his films. In 2012 he won the Best Screenplay award for Beyond the Hills, while in 2016 he won the Best Director award for Graduation.

The Observer is a British newspaper published on Sundays. Its parent company is Guardian Media Group Limited, publisher of The Guardian.

(Photo: Wikipedia)