Although 4 Months won the Cannes Festival’s highest award and is sometimes dramatically riveting, there also are too many moments when the film rambles. It’s very European. It takes a long time to get started. It’s well into the middle of the film before 4 Months begins to take hold. Director Cristian Mungiu often just sets up his widescreen camera and lets it run. No cutting between actors in a scene. Just long takes which sometimes seem to go on forever as the characters jabber back and forth. It’s like watching a play.
What's funny is that the very lines that Mr. Janusonis means most critically (snap!) are the ones that make me most excited to see the movie tonight. I love very European movies, especially if they're made in Europe where, let's be honest, all the very best European movies seem to come from these days. They just have a knack over there.
And I love scenes that just seem to go on forever and ever, and where the characters just jabber, jabber, jabber about almost nothing except that you're supposed to feel like something really important is being discussed, like the sort of thing that might be discussed in a play or maybe even in someone else's real life, and it looks like nothing is going to blow up and no one's crotch is going to be "accidentally" kicked by Queen Latifah the whole movie.
That was for you, Mr. Janusonis.
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