Critics reviews

The movie sheds its secrets slowly; if you’re paying attention, its tiny but telling details and elisions tell a bigger story.

Like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the snarl of red tape sticks to everything, and while the tone here is less sarcastic, the cumulative effect of the film’s long shots—triumphs of concentrated minutiae and heightened performance—are every bit as haunting.

One scene, one cut, zero music. Cristian Mungiu's 2007 Palme d'Or winner is a touchstone of the Romanian New Wave, a stark wonder of a film exemplified by visual precision, a bracingly clear-eyed script and glacial detachment. Imbuing a backstreet abortion with the brutal tension of a crime thriller – and abortion was a crime in 1980s Romania – Mungiu evokes the callous and repressive atmosphere of Ceausescu's foundering dictatorship.

Possessed of both a fierce political spirit and a lean, patient aesthetic, it announced the arrival of not just a vital new voice, but also a burgeoning movement—the so-called Romanian New Wave, which peaked here, a few films in, with its most gripping and empathetic work.

Like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the snarl of red tape sticks to everything, and while the tone here is less sarcastic, the cumulative effect of the film’s long shots—triumphs of concentrated minutiae and heightened performance—are every bit as haunting.