4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — the Romanian abortion drama that won the top prize at Cannes six months ago, and is easily one of the best films of this year — may be running into some trouble, audience-wise, as it leaves the festival circuit and moves into more mainstream venues.
Jeffrey Wells, the Hollywood Elsewhere blogger who called the film a “masterpiece” a few weeks ago, says he has heard rumblings from within the Academy’s ranks that the film — which opens in the U.S. in January, during awards season — might not even be nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film award:
“Some felt it was a masterpiece and others didn’t,” according to a publicist. The journalist says he heard that some complained that Cristian Mungiu’s film is “too slow” and that some “didn’t like the fetus on the floor shot.” The publicist says that “some complained about Oleg Mutu’s static camera work” as well as “some of the hand-held tracking shots.”
In related news, I was surprised today to discover that the film has already left Vancouver. It opened here two weeks ago and its first week was pretty standard — matinees, evening shows, the works — but then, in its second week, it was relegated to one screening per night at 10pm. And now, it’s gone. Yikes.
Fortunately, it seems to be playing still in Toronto and Montreal, and perhaps it’s playing in other Canadian cities as well. But I’m still a little shocked to see that it’s left my town so quickly — especially since I was planning to see it a second time before revising my review for an American outlet or two.
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