HomeLISA'S BESTS
8. 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
This year in American movies, unmarried
young women startled by unplanned pregnancy
gave birth to laughs and healthy babies. Not so
in Cristian Mungiu's grim, brilliant Romanian stunner,
rightful winner of the top prize at the 2007 Cannes
Film Festival. The title baldly states the date from conception to illegal abortion for a desperate university
student in the last days of Ceausescu's spirit-crushing
regime. Working with the same deft cinematographer
who kept watch on a dying man in The
Death of Mr. Lazarescu (last year's Romanian entry on
my top 10 list), Mungiu fills in the details, focusing
on the facts of life in what he so sardonically calls his
country's ''Golden Age.''
The Best & Worst of 2007
The year that was: Our choices -- and yours -- for the highs and lows in pop culture
