Attention: You should read the instructions for film responses again. For a "quality effort" grade, be sure to focus on the film work in ONE moment from the film per paragraph. Your document name should be "LastName.FirstName.FR6.S20"
This Romanian film offers a rich opportunity for cultural study—set in 1987 (twenty years earlier than its release date), it shows us a country that is economically and socially opposite to the opulence of America at the time. But the director, Cristian Mungiu, manages to give this movie a more personal than cultural significance. The highly emotional content of the film, enhanced by the slooooowwww shooting style (hardly any cuts), creates an uncomfortable level of intimacy with the characters.
The political dimension of this film is hard to deny. In the lives of Gabita and Otilia, we see evidence of economic struggle, social desperation, and personal trauma that presumably result, in part, from the way their country is being governed. The careful arrangement of details in the film suggests that the director laments how these women are forced to the extremes we see, or that he is at least criticizing the social design that could lead to so much pain. But the pain remains deeply human as well, and is caused by personal choices.
The film makes no attempt, with the exception of the absent sex scenes we might have been subjected to, to shield us from the raw reality of Gabita’s unsanctioned abortion. Every stage of it is painstakingly shown to us: the arrangements made by Otilia, the clinical warnings of Mr. Bebe, his price, the wrapped foetus on the bathroom floor, the disposal. All of it seems directed at eliciting a real and human response from the audience. The difficulty is figuring out exactly how we are meant to respond.
Now here is your prompt: First, what is the purpose of telling this story in such stark and brutal detail, if we are not clearly shown the message of this film? Is the message that such experiences cannot be reduced to messages, to ideological neatness? Second, think specifically about the final moment of the film when Otilia looks out the window of the restaurant and appears to make eye contact with us. Is this breaking of the fourth wall (look it up!) an invitation to use or learn from what we have seen, or are we shocked out of the illusion and invited to exercise greater and more personal empathy for the characters? Remember, please write two equal-length paragraphs, for a total of at least 300 words in Google Drive.
