[lbo-talk] Neo-Realism: Chapter 2

[Joanna]

Just came back from the movies where I saw "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 
Days," a Romanian movie that just won the Palme D'Or this year.

For a summary of how Romanian cinema is writing the next chapter in 
neo-realism, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20Romanian-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=new+wave+on+black+sea&st=nyt&oref=slogin

(Michael Pollak, C Grimes, bitch: go and see this movie!) It was very 
good, and I am fascinated by the way in which the current wave of 
neorealist filmmaking (like 4 Months and Death of Mr. Lazarescu) is an 
art that resists theorizing, resists transcendence, and demands an 
immediate (political) accounting. This is something new.

"4 Months" was contrasted with "Juno" recently in a Counterpunch 
article, but if you look closely and leave aside the differences that 
follow from differences in genre, the movies have a lot in common and 
produce a new sense of feminism: one in which feminism is not defined by 
one's unrepentant ability to kill a foetus, but by the absolute 
willingness of women to help one another in very trying circumstances.

I recommend both movies.

Joanna