Although much has been made of the chiller aspect of this Cannes Palm D’Or winner, it is as far removed from a Damon/Cage vehicle as any Romanian movie you’ll ever see. Most sensational adjectives fit: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is a distressing roller-coaster of a film; thoroughly unpalatable and utterly compelling; heart-breaking yet, if it were a novel, unputdownable. Not bad for a film about back-street abortions in a European hellhole.

Young Otilia is pregnant with no intention of keeping the child. But in deeply conservative, religiously devout Romania, her options are limited to illegal intervention in a cheap hotel. She traps a friend for moral support and books a GP willing to do the job. The ill-tempered, judgmental practioner is no Vera Drake; rather a sermonising opportunist who scares the hell out of his patients, and the audience. His violent intimidation is designed to focus the woman in what is, after all, an extraordinarily dangerous business. If caught, the consequences are unimaginable. This tension gives the film its most chilling threads, entwined with outrage at the shocking abuse of human rights and supported by a provocative undercurrent of deception.

Crisply produced and sublimely performed, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is a deeply challenging film; a festival darling that critics and art-house fans live for. With limited appeal at the multiplexes, it’s unlikely Mungiu’s stunning second feature will get much of an audience, however Bergman hardly packed the Cinerama and that didn’t diminish his genius at all.

// COLIN FRASER