It's been several days since the movie was finished, and the image of the four-month-old stillborn wrapped in a dirty towel still haunts my mind.
The movie tells the story of two girls who secretly had an abortion in Romania, where abortion is prohibited. Originally, I watched it with a clear concept of advance, but after the movie, abortion became a topic that I was not particularly concerned about. The distorted relationship between genders under the totalitarian system, the delicate feelings between women, and the perpetual misery of life, these unspeakable things in the chest are far more depressing than a clear anti-abortion slogan. people aftertaste.
I especially like the metaphor in the movie about the goldfish in the fishbowl. The movie screen unfolds from a tank of goldfish. The background of the fish tank is a picture of a CBD with high-rise buildings, which is very different from the Romanian scenery at that time. But in the first ten minutes of the opening, I was completely overwhelmed by conjectures, and the slightly trivial plot and dialogue really made me almost fall asleep. But when the scene at the end repeats the opening in an overly restrictive way, everything seems to be explained again.
A table, Gabita and Otilia sitting opposite each other, Gabita's cigarette, and the wedding in the distance that exists as another background.
At the end, the sound of cars outside the window and the picture of lights passing over the two girls made the audience realize that there was not only the lens of the movie but also a layer of glass between themselves and the two girls. The fish tank did not disappear, and the two girls were the goldfish trapped in it. Gabita successfully aborted the four-month-old fetus, and the crisis was lifted. It seemed that everything had changed, and it was developing in a less sad direction. But in fact, nothing has changed, they are still fragile like goldfish, still can only live in a small fish tank, bear everything this society imposes on them, far away is the unattainable happiness, it is another world, so close ,so far away.
In the distorted and cruel Romanian society that was very patriarchal, full of injustice and discrimination at the time, it seemed that the inevitable fate of women was to go to destruction. In the whole film, the man who made Gabita pregnant does not appear from beginning to end, and the seemingly gentle Adi showed selfishness and cowardice when facing Otilia's questioning, as well as the old cunning and cunning, forcibly possessed Mr. Beebe in the body of two girls. The male appears in a relatively single face in the film, but it deepens the connection between the two girls.
Gabita and Otilia in the movie are closer to a damaged community of destiny, a fragile and tight alliance formed under high pressure. Otilia's sexual relationship with Bibby in order to save Gabita is not so much a devotion for friendship, but a mutual support and self-rescue of the same victims, or it can be said to save a more abstract sense. of women, although the price is still to be compromised. So at the end of the movie, the two girls are sitting opposite each other in the dark dining room. The Gabita plate that just fell off the fetus is a strange food similar to foie gras and pig brain, and the lively wedding banquet in the distance forms an excellent irony.
And the relationship between the two girls in the movie is also very intriguing. If it weren't for Otilia's comprehensive care for Gabita that has been shown in the opening part, it makes people believe that there is some kind of inseparable relationship between the two. I really can't accept Otilia's sacrifice for the selfish and stupid Gabita with the eyes of an ordinary person to the extent that she betrayed her body. After Bibby left, the two lay down and sat down. The scene of a few words of argument was very well shot. The delicate relationship between women, the former friendship, the anger of being deceived, the helplessness after betrayal of the body, and the last pity are all there. reflected in this scene.
It’s also my vulgarity. When watching a movie, I’m always nervous about whether there will be various uncontrollable plots, but in fact, in this secret abortion, although the two girls have been in a state of panic and nervousness, they are the most nervous. Dangerous plots have not appeared at all. After having sex with Dr. Beebe, Otilia stole the knife but didn't use it; Gabita's had no bleeding, high fever, or dangerous conditions during the abortion process; no hotel staff went overboard There were no intense conflicts and quarrels between the two girls, and the discarding of the stillbirth was not discovered.
However, the feeling of tension and depression has not diminished in the slightest. Movies that seem to have cancelled all dramatic plots are actually the director's calmness and restraint, hiding the real horror, the horror of rights, gender, society, relationships and other issues. behind.
There are many great applications of long takes in the film, whether it's the long, almost real-time discussion that Otilia attends at a party at Adi's house, or Otilia's slightly bumpy run through the dark streets. The shots of the film give people a strong sense of reality, making people realize again and again that this is not a movie, this is the real social life in Romania at that time.
The film ends with a completely blacked-out screen, before I thought Otilia and Gabita were finally going to have a reckoning conversation. I have always felt that abortion is not the main line of the story, but the relationship between the two girls, so the sudden black screen made me feel like a mouthful of blood was in my chest and couldn't spit out.
But in fact, what can they say? At the end of the movie, although it does not give a seemingly dusty and explanatory ending, it is already a complete ending. What the movie tries to present is life itself, and any single conflict, any kind of contradictory conflict. A temporary solution does not mean the real end.
The film takes place in Romania in 1987, and since the Ceausescu government enacted a law against abortion in 1966, the decree was not repealed until the end of the socialist regime in Romania in 1989. So no matter how this clandestine abortion ends, the crisis will not end, there will be no easy dust settlement or simple total destruction. They will still return to a very patriarchal and classist society, to a cruel life where they are constantly being violated. The ending of the movie will not end their lives or their suffering, it just presents the continuation of this state of affairs. A fragment, so it doesn't need to have a catchy beginning, and it doesn't need to have a fulfilled end, it's all going on.
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