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Romania 1987. A chilling glimpse of a devastated country. A shapeless country, devoid of any hint of life. It will take another two years to bring some color to this land. But it will be the blood red of the Timisoara uprising. No one imagines that they will remember that Christmas forever, with tanks stormed and flags pierced by the rage of demonstrators and the bullets of the Securitate.
Neither Otilia nor Gabita imagine it. They are too busy hoping for a better day within the moldy walls of a student dormitory. Needless to say, they are two beautiful women. Endowed with a sweet simplicity, too often marked by a vacant look. They cannot smile because they are unable to live. And in Romania one of the worst dictatorial regimes ever imagined prevailed, established under the pretext, and I underline pretext, of communism.
Life is consumed between waxing, something warm to ward off the imposed harshness of winter temperatures. Sometimes there is no electricity. And also hot water, which when available, is used for a relaxing shower. Gabita has a burden within her. The result of an unwanted union. The extract of a violent synergy, a wrong alchemy. She would like to share that burden with someone, perhaps get rid of it to dream again of a decent life. But she cannot because the law forbids it. Abortion has been strictly prohibited since 1966 to induce adoption. Even the tyrant adopted a child, just imagine. Abortion is illegal and if you get caught by the Conducator’s thugs, a grim future awaits.
Otilia speaks little. She prefers not to speak, and with the naturalness that distinguishes her, for a strange love she cannot qualify, she feels she must share that burden that her friend carries within. Between a contraband cigarette smoked more to encourage the dissolution of that fetus and the permanent terror of being discovered, they will manage to contact a doctor who performs the operation in almost total, squalid anonymity. The right hotel, that designated room, the phone that doesn’t always work, and the documents they would rather not show. That scarf wrapped squarely like a devoted snake that deliberately hides that forced smile. With the hope that it also suppresses a little of the horrible cold that whips your neck. On the street, there is no one, except for some icy trams and the usual queue of desperate people in front of the dead entrance of a grocery store. The clatter of families marks some faded Dacia.
The total absence of music, the deliberately cold colors of beautiful cinematography characterize this film, creating an absolutely heavy atmosphere, despite the emptiness surrounding every shot. Long silences and petrified looks contribute to making the aura of fear enveloping every figure forced to move in that shapeless theater deeper. Disgusting sex in exchange for an abortion. And not just one? Both. Even the one carrying the lamb to the altar of sacrifice, through a rubber tube that will expel the flower of evil.
Suffering. With the fear of being discovered and dying of deprivation in prison. A staircase in another frozen barrack. That burden disposed of by one that will be morally picked up by the other. A heavy, eternal burden that does not dissolve even when it lies among the anonymous trash of who knows which family. A quarrel during a wedding will provide a bit of chewable meat. At least to relieve the tension.
Beautiful work by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, deservedly awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Does anyone in Italy remember it? Do these cinephile people called Italians recall it? Let’s not kid ourselves. Works like this pass quietly. Too busy going on vacation. At Christmas.
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