Romania in the 1980’s under a totalitarian communist state is one big grey building of a country, an uninspiring, bleak configuration of hopelessness that plays the suitable backdrop to director Cristian Mungiv’s 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days. A young student, Gabita, prepares for an abortion in a country where this is a crime and could lead to ten years imprisonment. She enroles the help of her dorm mate Otilia and thus the seeds are sown for a claustrophobic real time ride into the night. Misogyny is the happy bedfellow of misanthropy in a country and culture well versed in despair and terror. The meet with Bebe, the abortionist who takes their money but demands that they both have sex with him: Shot in single log takes it’s a clammy and at time near unwatchable experience. Otilia through her loyal friendship to Gabita is the eyes and ears of the film, and the long single takes that are seldom ever cut into leave us reeling as her world falls apart in front of us. This is hard-core social realism, bereft of laughter, joy, hope; this is a eulogy to survival and a bitter representation of communism. The performance at the hart of the story from Anamaria Marinca is a slow, all consuming, brittle and technically brilliant performance. Brave, uncompromising and indelible she lets the events roll around and over her like a series of rpg’s but she never wearies, hides, runs away or looks to leave her friend. There were moments where I felt as if I were going to faint watching the silent and viscous manipulation of the woman by the abortionist. Life had little value during this period, which the director catches brilliantly as the foetus is thrown into a rubbish-chute. If you’ve got the stomach for it then it’s a must see, bold piece of super confident film-making.