1 Empathy in a bleak time. Review of Four months, three weeks, and two days (2007), dir. Cristian Mungiu. PsycCRITIQUES, 53 (11), 2008, [np] Empathy in a bleak time Four months, three weeks, and two days (2007). Romania. Directed by Cristian Mungiu. Review by Keith Oatley This film, set in Romania in 1987, in the last years of the notorious Ceauşescu regime, could scarcely be more bleak, but it could scarcely be more affecting. The film was written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, who based it on a real story he heard which, he said, affected him for more than fifteen years. The plot revolves round a student, Gabita (played by Laura Vasiliu), who is pregnant and seeking an abortion at a time when abortions are illegal because the regime wants to boost Romania’s birthrate. Gabita is a scatty person who has left it almost too late—four months, three weeks, and two days—and the film is about how her college room-mate, Otilia (played by Anamaria Marinca), helps her through searing interactions with the illegal abortionist (played by Vlad Ivanov). The film takes place in a college dorm, in a dingy hotel room, in the cramped apartment of Otilia’s boyfriend’s parents, and in the streets of a city of rutted roads and unlovely high-rise buildings. The times in which the film is set were not just utilitarian, they were pinched. An accomplishment of the film is to show how relationships between people are affected by an authoritarian regime: not just having to deal with a sinister person to obtain an abortion—an early change after Ceauşescu was deposed was to make abortion legal again—but even in transactions like booking a hotel room. It is hard to avoid comparing this film with Von Donnersmarck’s 2006 The lives of Others (reviewed by Oatley, 2007) set in East Germany before the fall of Communism. That film depicted human decency occurring in a number of ways and it is possible to see it as too sentimental (Marcel, 2007), because in reality there is no limit to the constraints on human relationships that can be imposed by a government which behaves in an authoritarian way. This film is not sentimental. Amid the bleakness, what stands out is Otilia’s determination to stick by her friend, whatever the cost. In the end this film is not political, but psychological. The film industry seems to think movie-goers like to be horrified, so horror films are made; seems to think movie-goers like to be made anxious, so thrillers are made. In this film there are no ghouls, no assassins breaking through the back door at night, no guns, no car chases. There is just the ordinary life of two young women in a predicament. Yet the horror and anxiety that I felt in this film were more intense than any I could experience in a horror film or thriller. I saw the film alone in the afternoon. As I left the cinema it was dark, and the mood persisted. In the subway, someone bumped into me by mistake—he was hurrying to get out before the doors closed—but I felt suddenly alarmed. As I looked around, the passengers seemed threatening. Even at home for several hours a somber mood persisted. How is this done? Four months prompts a deep empathy of audience members for the protagonist. This is especially interesting because we feel empathetic for Otilia because she is empathetic for Gabita, who manages to do very little for herself.

2 The director combines a perfect depiction of Gabita’s predicament with the stunning acting of Anamaria Marinca who plays Otilia. The predicament is in the vulnerability of two young women in a harsh world. The plans and actions of the capable Otilia run on our minds as if they were our own. The situation is perilous: not just because of possible medical complications of an illegal abortion, and not just because the young women could go to prison. The camera focuses on Otilia who is at the center of every scene. There is no voice-over, but what is achieved is the equivalent of the best kind of short story told in the first-person. Although at times Anamaria Marinca shows little smiles and flashes of affection, for most of the film we see her face immobile, we see her eyes glancing here and there, we see the deliberation of her actions. She concentrates on the situation, thinking what to do, feeling the implications of what is happening. The effect is that the audience member also concentrates on the situation, seems to think the unvoiced thoughts that Otilia is thinking, takes the decisions she takes and, most of all, feels for her as she tries to find a way forward. What are the psychological bases of these effects? First, as Royzman and Rozin (2006) have shown, when we do not know someone very well, it is easier to feel emotions of empathy and sympathy if that person is suffering rather than succeeding. It is only when we know someone well that we can join with them in their successes. The most basic plot process in fiction is first to enable the reader or audience member to get to know the protagonist well. Then, according to Zillmann (1994), we mentally take on the plans of the protagonist, feel pleased when these succeed, and sad, anxious, or angry when they are impeded. Perhaps the best demonstration was that of Trabasso and Chung (2004), who had 20 viewers watch two well-known commercial films. All the viewers rated their liking for the films’ protagonists and antagonists. Each film was stopped at 12 points during viewing and 10 of the viewers were asked, at each point, to say how well things were going for the protagonist and how well for the antagonist. The other 10 viewers were asked to rate their own emotions. At points where those who rated the action said things were going well for the protagonist, those who rated their own emotions felt positive. At points where things went badly for the protagonist, those who rated their own emotions felt negative. In contrast, viewers felt negative emotions when the antagonist was succeeding and positive emotions when the antagonist was failing. The process of empathy is such that we take on the purposes and plans of a protagonist as if they are our own. We feel emotions, but not those of a fictional character: the emotions we feel are our own as the protagonist’s purposes and plans meet the vicissitudes of the plot. It is hard to think of another film that enables us to feel so strongly into a difficult but believable predicament. References Marcel, A.J. (2007). Personal communication. Oatley, K. (2007). Review of Lives of others. PsycCRITIQUES. 52 (27) np. Royzman, E. B., & Rozin, P. (2006). Limits of symhedonia: The differential role of prior emotional attachment in sympathy and sympathetic joy. Emotion, 6, 82-93. Trabasso, T., & Chung, J. (2004). Empathy: Tracking characters and monitoring their concerns in film. Paper presented at the Winter Text Conference, January 23, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Von Donnersmarck, F. H. (2006). The lives of others (Germany).

3 Zillmann, D. (1994). Mechanisms of emotional involvement with drama. Poetics, 23, 33–51.