4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (15)

Let no-one ever accuse a Cannes jury of taking the easy, crowd-pleasing option. This Romanian drama, winner of last year's Palme d'Or, is as haunting a picture as you are likely to see this year, early though it is. It's not simply the subject matter, although a backstreet abortion in communist-era Romania is a near-perfect definition of "bleak". What makes Cristian Mungiu's film outstanding are the stunning central performances and the palm-prickling tension he wrests from a simple tale.

Otilia and Gabita are students. When we first meet them they are preparing for what seems like a jolly trip, getting money together, buying toiletries, chatting through plans. Their destination in this case, however, is a cheap hotel where one is to have an abortion. The numerical precision of the film's title is crucial. Abortion was illegal in Ceausescu's Romania, and beyond a certain point in a pregnancy, the prison sentence increased substantially. All of which is explained by the monstrously businesslike and perversely named Mr Bebe when he arrives at the hotel.

Though the outcome is in many ways inevitable, arriving at the story's end involves a bitter delving into the demands of friendship, the callousness of strangers, and the inhumanity of a regime content to bleed the life out of its citizens with petty regulations and routine terror. Mungui's palette of greys and greens, mainly illuminated by either harsh strip lighting or the winter's glare, make everything and everyone look cheap and miserable. Indeed, in its merciless depiction of the life-sapping joylessness of life under European communism, 4 Months ... makes The Lives of Others look like a Disney romp.

Though it's tough going, the performance of Anamaria Marinca as the capable, sensitive Otilia gives Mungiu's film grace, meaning and even a sense of hope. One to file under experience rather than something to be enjoyed, but still an unmissable piece of cinema from a country finding its voice.

With a Golden Palm from Cannes and a European Film Award already in the bag this Romanian film seems like a favourite for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, however, the subject matter might yet deter Academy voters.

This is a film about abortion; the title refers to how pregnant one of the two main female characters becomes before she attempts to seek an illegal termination.

The film is incredibly tense and successfully conveys a harrowing picture of a society in almost terminal decay, at the end of the Ceausescu regime.

The performances are excellent, but while this is definitely not a film for the faint of heart, it is a fine piece of work.