tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6825246720481479124.post1663951099120702844..comments2012-07-25T13:57:46.733+02:00Comments on ÜberKritik: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 DaysÜberKritikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13138400353395373476noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6825246720481479124.post-72450386049134243752011-01-04T13:28:20.855+01:002011-01-04T13:28:20.855+01:00I'm afraid I don't fully agree with you on...I'm afraid I don't fully agree with you on this one. This was so close to being a great movie I think it's really a shame. Several griefs from me:<br />- the whole setup was utterly unbelivable: no woman in her right mind would ever go to a hotel to have an abortion: hotels were infested with Securitate and guest lists were sent to the Militia. So the ladies had a student room for themselves (which was the most liberal environment they would have chosen any time) and yet they go to a Bucharest hotel to do the thingy? They wouldn't even be allowed in as they had a Bucharest visa on their IDs (few of us remember that). So was the whole hotel scene added just to serve narative purposes (having a stake, a bit of money, to lose if the things didn't happen on that day) or because Mungiu had thought of a cool dialogue with the hotel receptionist? OK, most of viewers will not know the difference so I may be too old but hey… <br />- by the end of the movie I got really sick and tired of all the red herrings abandoned all over the place: the table cloth, the father, Bebe's ID, the pocket knife… Mungiu, if you think this is cool, well, think again. You fool me once, shame on me… One is cool, but many red herrings rotting in your film no longer look cool but sloppy.<br />- no mention about the (known or unknown) father makes Gabi more of a monster than she needs to be. Seems to me that Mungiu simply didn't bother to through in a one-liner;<br />- many good moments but the decisive moment was completely blotched: In the door frame, Gabitza says "I'll do it, but my friend has no stake in this", Bebe seems to ponder the question, he says nothing, but Otilia simply jumps in a second too early: No, sure, I'll do it too, hourraaah. Again, one extra line would have saved the day.<br />- too long indeed - it becomes almost didactic. Frankly, I got the message, great and all, but in the end I got bored and was not really waken up by the (rather artificial) suspense with the guy following Otilia in the dark. Less is often more and 30 minutes less could have brought this on my top 10 list for the year.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6825246720481479124.post-3700798555647286752008-05-19T06:46:00.000+02:002008-05-19T06:46:00.000+02:00Very impressive comment, UberK, though, what if yo...Very impressive comment, UberK, though, what if you changed perspective and placed those monsters next to the ones possibly populating a movie like "No Country for Old Men"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6825246720481479124.post-91461468833178910712008-03-08T00:37:00.000+01:002008-03-08T00:37:00.000+01:00I read this post before I had seen the movie and ...I read this post before I had seen the movie and ever since wanted so badly to see that movie that had given you so much to write about. Agree with you on every point you make. <BR/>Now I have finally seen the movie in a movie theater in Seattle in the midst of a horrified, unsympathetic audience. You make excellent points about the pro-abortionist, egotistical culture of our native country. How did we get here? I still remember my Am. friends questions: Why did they, both Gabita and Otilia, never considered just having the baby? To which I did not have a more convenient answer then: It's a cultural thing. It's hard to explain... Lumi, SeattleAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6825246720481479124.post-13678630847024827872007-12-18T23:01:00.000+01:002007-12-18T23:01:00.000+01:00Ops, sorry, I haven't been checking up on my comme...Ops, sorry, I haven't been checking up on my comments lately, didn't imagine how anyone could ADD to this! ;)<BR/><BR/>Except for myself, I keep thinking about this darn movie. I even wanted to post again on its subject, but I'll write a book instead. Just kidding.<BR/><BR/>1. You say men who impregnate and don't even know it don't qualify as "monsters". I think that, in the respective day and age, they did. If casual, unprotected sex is no longer on the acceptable behavior menu, you give it up and share the burden with the women of that world. Something which tons of Romanian males weren't up to. So we had all those orphanages full of unwanted babies, those garbage bins full of foetuses and those cemeteries full of women trying to not become moms. But who faced those truths? Life went on, pants went down, reproductive instincts took their toll -- and while some of the boys did do "the right thing", way too many didn't. <BR/><BR/>Mungiu's movie is about the essential loneliness of women when faced with pregnancy. Its essence is given in that exchange between Otilia and her boyfriend, their quarrel ending with "Gabita, as she is, would be there for me!" Men need an effort to connect and understand women at that level -- which they didn't do, not back then, not back there -- so many, too many women were failed when it mattered most! The sheer consequences of these failures made monsters out of the males in those equations. <BR/><BR/>You seem to consider that "being plain selfish" when you leave someone pregnant is acceptable behavior. Seeing the woman through her ordeal is the least that can be expected. The mark of humanity -- hence, monsterhood again. <BR/><BR/>2. You say that Otilia did not prostitute herself when having intercourse with Bebe. But sex for anything other than pleasure is prostitution, isn't it? Surely you didn't mean that she fancied Bebe at that moment, did you? <BR/><BR/>She didn't get money, but she did help her friend save some cash. How is that not a financial gain? What she did was consensual intercourse with a stranger for a benefit other than personal pleasure. I've heard some call it "rape". No way! They both had free will and used it. They traded sex for a surgical intervention that could have easily amounted to homicide. While some would have called that potential outcome a double homicide. <BR/><BR/>3. That particular portion of truth could have lasted 30 minutes less. Those minutes were redundant, stolen out of our lives. It was the same truth, repeated over and over, painfully and needlessly so, just like here. <BR/><BR/>Not that there's something wrong with Hollywood, anyway... :PÜberKritikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13138400353395373476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6825246720481479124.post-33324316046223868372007-10-20T15:29:00.000+02:002007-10-20T15:29:00.000+02:00I want to congratulate u for the passionate commen...I want to congratulate u for the passionate comment on '432': indeed, what u said about it being truth vs entertainment is very... well, true (incidentally, i had a talk @ the univ of pittsburgh just yesterday & made exactly the same remark about what singles out new romanian cinema!). <BR/>But i disagree on 3 points:<BR/>1 why do u consider the father of the '432' embryo (i just can't bring myself to think of a 5 months fetus as a 'child'!) to be a 'monster'? i really don't find this to be true... he might not even KNOW about the unwanted baby OR be just plain selfish; whic is pretty common, isn't it? or else the world wd be full of 'monsters'...<BR/>2 why do u say that Otilia 'prostitutes' herself by accepting to have intercourse with Mr Bebe? I really don't see it as such either... i mean, does she get paid or what?! No she doesn't... so?<BR/>3 finally: why should u want the film to be 30 minutes shorter, if u clearly specified it's TRUTH and NOT entertainment? Yr asking for it to be 'shorter' stems, i'm afraid, from a hollywood-prone mentality ;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com