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‘April’ Review: The Cruelest Month Lives Up to Its Reputation in a Radical, Shattering Exploration of Women’s Lives, Rights and Bodies in Peril
A female obstetrician moonlights as an illegal abortionist in Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili's extraordinary second feature 'April.'
That hardened, hard-earned sangfroid is evident as we proceed to follow Nina through the tasks and trials of her everyday life: her rounds at the maternity clinic, performed with cool but reassuring professionalism; the brisk, anonymous sex she has with men picked up on country roadsides; and her long after-hours drives to remote villages, where she provides covert abortions and dispenses birth control to young women in need. “April” unfolds with the high-stakes, breath-stopping tension of a thriller, minus any undue compression or manipulation of plot points, and a hyper-poised camera content to watch any scene play out for precisely as long as it takes — be it a delicate medical operation, a chilly office conference or a rural hailstorm of biblical proportions. Amplifying the racket of raging weather, the muffled workings of the human body or the hum of interior white noise, it merges with a brittly echoing score by experimental composer Matthew Herbert — played with the same equine-skeleton instrumentation he used for his cult album “The Horse” — to suggest something of the inner scream pushing against Nina’s outer composure.
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