I sat down yesterday afternoon with Cristian Mungiu, the 39 year-old Romanian director of the undeniably brilliant and masterful 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days. I finally saw the Palme d’or winner a couple of weeks ago and was convinced right away it’s all but certain to take the Best Foreign Language Oscar next … Read more
HE to Cristian Mungiu, Romania-based director of the classic, world-renowned 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days “Cristian — Greetings & salutations. Could I ask you to please explain the aspect-ratio situation on the Criterion Bluray of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days?’ “My recollection is that the film was originally shown in either 1.78:1 … Read more
HE’s own Cristian Mungiu — Palme d’Or winner for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and co-recipient of last year’s Best Director prize for Graduation — will serve as the honcho for the 2017 Cannes Film Festival’s student and short film juries. What does this have to do with the price of rice in … Read more
I saw Cristian Mungiu‘s Graduation (Sundance Selects, 4.8) in Cannes about ten months ago. The great Mungiu, who shared the Best Director prize last May with Personal Shopper‘s Olivier Assayas, won’t be doing face-time interviews in Los Angeles. (Maybe phoners, I’m told.) My memory’s gone a little stale so I’m catching it again tonight at … Read more
A thought hit me during Sunday night’s dinner at Bouchon for Beyond The Hills and Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days director Cristian Mungiu that he could be in the Terrence Malick business if he wanted it. His rep as a woman-friendly, deep-focus, introspective helmer is such he could make indie-fashioned pics in this … Read more
Two or three days ago I did a brief sitdown with Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu, whom I consider to be a major, world-class talent and a master of plain, austere minimalism. I had last spoken with him during promotion for the great Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days. I’m off to see … Read more
IFC Films has acquired U.S. distrib rights to Cristian Mungiu‘s Tales From The Golden Age, an omnibus film which wil show in Cannes this week in the Un Certain Regard section. Pic is “a collection of Romanian urban legends from the communist era,” written by Mungiu and co-directed by Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, … Read more
Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir (whose last name I’ve never learned how to pronounce…do you say it like Chicago’s O’Hare airport?) has an indie-film column on Salon.com called “Beyond the Multiplex”, and today he has an interview with 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days director Cristian Mungiu, along with an mp3 interview that won’t load.
Manohla Dargis‘s N.Y. Times review of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is one of the best she’s ever written. I haven’t been this gob-smacked by Dargis since she wrote three and half years ago about Michael Mann‘s Collateral: 4 Months director Cristian Mungiu, star Anamaria Marinca. “In 4 Months, 3 Weeks … Read more
The Academy’s short list of nine foreign-language films will be decided and announced next Tuesday, and then the screenings of these nine finalists — which in a fair and just world would include Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — will begin a week from today. The problem, as I’ve mentioned a … Read more
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, the one foreign- language film of ’07 that could arguably be called a masterpiece, was seen by one of the four color-coded Oscar screening committees on 11.2, and the reaction, according to three people in the loop, was “definitely mixed,” as one journalist friend puts it. The result … Read more
A link offered by friendly Romanian columnist Laura Gutanu to yesterday’s Cristian Mungiu interview regarding 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days.