For Gabita, the notion of taking responsibility for her own actions is completely unfamiliar. We wonder how she has survived to her current 20-ish age in a society that obviously requires boldness, courage and improvisation. For starters, she persuades Otilia to raise money for the operation. Then she asks her to go first to meet the abortionist. Then she neglects to make a reservation at the hotel that the abortionist specifies. That almost sinks the arrangement: The abortionist has experience suggesting that hotel will be a safe venue, and suspects he may be set up for a police trap. His name, by the way, is Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), and no, "bebe" is apparently not Romanian for "baby," but it looks suspicious to me.
The movie deliberately levels an unblinking gaze at its subjects. There are no fancy shots, no effects, no quick cuts, and Mungiu and his cinematographer, Oleg Mutu, adhere to a rule of one shot per scene. That makes camera placement and movement crucial, and suggests that every shot has been carefully prepared. Even shots where the ostensible subject of the action is half-visible, or not seen at all, serve a purpose, by insisting on the context and the frame. Visuals are everything here; the film has no music, only words or silences.
Otilia is heroic in this context; she reminds me a little of the ambulance attendant in the 2005 Romanian film "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu," who drove a dying man around all night, insisting on a hospital for him. Otilia grows exasperated with her selfish and self-obsessed friend, but she keeps on trying to help, even though she has problems of her own.
One of them is her boyfriend Adi (Alex Potocean), who is himself so self-oriented that we wonder if Otilia is attracted to the type. Even though she tries to explain that she and Gabita have urgent personal business, he insists on Otilia coming to his house to meet his family that night. He turns it into a test of her love. People who do that are incapable of understanding that to compromise would be a proof of their own love.
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