4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Saw this movie today, was pretty interesting, a very tense movie. It's about Romania in the 1980's, and the story of a girl who helps her friend get an abortion. I have no idea if it's still illegal there, but if it is, this movie made me hope it's not. The most interesting part of the movie is the way the shots are set up. The camera is placed extremely efficiently so that it never has to cut within the scene, it feels like there is only one camera within the whole room. There probably is, actually. the camera view only changes by panning or pivoting. What happens is that each shot is about 5 to 10 minutes long. I have seen moives where its got one or 2 scenes like this, but I've never seen an entire movie made this way. The camera will linger on and on in action (or lack of). It's a great technique for creating tension, they definitely knew how to make you feel what they wanted you to feel. This never gets too tiring since they are all composed very well. Oh, and since there's no cutting within a scene, that means if you're an actor you sometimes have to deliver 10 minutes of dialogue flawlessly. It's amazing, I couldnt do it, ever. It's a good movie, a well-told story, definitely not the feel-good movie of the summer though. So if you're into shot design, composition, and a nerd about all that kind of stuff like I am, definitely check it out..

This is a typical scene in the movie, I swear there's only about 20 cuts in the whole thing..