Blogical Conclusion

THE DINNER FROM HELL

APR 12, 2008 - ABOUT AN HOUR INTO CRISTIAN MUNGIU’S 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) realises that her spectacularly lousy day is about to get spectacularly worse. Her boyfriend Adi (Alexandru Potocean) has invited her to his home, to celebrate his mother’s birthday, and as soon as Otilia walks in, he accuses her of being late and forgetting to bring flowers. “Keep it up and I’m gone,” she snaps back, and at first, it appears that she’s overreacting. Adi’s concern is justified, after all, considering this is the first time his girlfriend is meeting his mother. Surely he’s entitled to a little peevishness at her lack of acknowledgement of the momentousness of this moment.

But then Adi doesn’t know what horrors Otilia has faced that day, what horrors she’s yet to face. First, she accompanied her pregnant friend Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) to a seedy hotel for an abortion at the hands of a seedier quack. Then she had to sleep with this man because he demanded more money, and her body was the only other currency she had. This alone would make Otilia’s day the worst ever in her young life, but as we know, misery arrives in multiples. Gabita’s weakened condition means that it’s up to Otilia to dispose of the aborted foetus, and given the instructions of the abortionist, it’s hard to decide which of these girls to feel sorry for – Gabita, the deliverer (“When you feel it coming out, go sit on the toilet, OK? Don’t throw the foetus in the toilet. It’ll block it.”) or Otilia, the disposer (“Don’t bury it where dogs can dig it up.”).

So this is what she’s gone through when she snaps at Adi, and her hopes of escaping after a quick hug and a kiss to his mother are dashed after the latter insists Otilia stay for dinner. And the scene that follows is the film’s highlight – beautifully acted, beautifully staged. Mungiu fixes his camera on Otilia at the dinner table; she’s flanked by Adi, his parents, and a few family friends, all of whom are strangers to her. The way Otilia is framed, her oppression is palpable; we experience, with her, that boxed-in sensation of being with people when the only person you want to be with is yourself. And there’s no escape. Hands reach across her to pick up bread, a bottle of sauce, a glass of wine. People lean across her to deliver hugs and kisses. She’s trapped in a prison of flesh and blood and unbearable good cheer.

And there’s non-stop chatter, banal chatter – about her parents, about her marriage, about why Adi doesn’t eat pork, about how best to prepare potatoes – and it’s a small miracle that Otilia doesn’t just pick up a fork and gouge out the eyes of the nearest person. Mercifully, after they stand up and sing “Happy Birthday,” after this affirmation of life and humanity – which Otilia couldn’t care less about, after witnessing the death of a living being (whose age is spelled out in this Romanian film’s title) – Adi takes her to his room, and that’s when the dam bursts. She can’t say a thing to Gabita, or to the people she’s just dined with – so she takes it out on Adi, demanding what he’d do if she were the one that got pregnant. After an ill-advised moment of hesitation, Adi offers that he’d marry her, but this is too mild an appeasement, too little, too late. There’s nothing he can do as Otilia channels all her frustration into this whiplash: “I’m not spending my life making you potatoes.”

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