Spango Dips

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days ★★★★

Brave, beautifully naturalistic snapshot of late-80s Romania, where two young women (Marinca, Vasiliu) endure a day of tragic hardship to secure an illegal abortion. As relatively “straight” dramas go, this is one of the best in years: crushing in its unsentimentality, told largely with excruciating, reel-length takes, leavened at the oddest moments when the predicament’s hugeness seems genuinely absurd (such is life, no?), and anchored by performances of exquisite strangled pain. Just fantastic. And the final shot haunts dreams.

(2007-Romania) C-113m. D: Cristian Mungiu. W: Cristian Mungiu. DP: Oleg Mutu. ANAMARIA MARINCA, LAURA VASILIU, VLAD IVANOV, ALEXANDRU POTOCEAN. Super 35.

Taxi to the Dark Side ★★★★

“Harrowing” is too mild a word to describe the effect of this exhaustive investigative documentary about the detention and interrogation methods practiced by the US military in its war on terror. Personalizing the crisis by binding it to the story of Dilawar, a manifestly innocent Afghani taxi driver who was beaten to death within days of his arrival at Bagram Air Force Base, is brilliant; the film is able to move from examining the heinous, supposedly “isolated” case of Dilawar, to making a sweeping indictment of the Total Mission in shockingly few steps. I strongly doubt it’s possible to leave the theater after this one less than fully convinced of the illegality, contemptibility, and ineffectiveness of torture. Oscar winner for Best Documentary, and rightfully so; given the current climate, this feels more like required viewing for American adults than any other film I can recall.

(2007) C-106m. D: Alex Gibney. W: Alex Gibney. DP: Maryse Alberti, Greg Andracke. [R]

And now, please enjoy this video of session great Billy Ward from his new DVD “Voices in My Head,” which is essentially a lecture about the evolution of jazz drumming, complete with demonstrations of some of the trademarks of the style’s icons. This is obviously of especial interest to other drummers, but hopefully will prove edifying in some way or another to anyone fond of jazz.