If there’s ever a film destined to be mistaken for a centrist apologia (if not outright conservative propaganda), it’s Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s. Fjordthe searing social drama that won him his second Palme d’Or. However, its emotional motivation is one of contradiction, so any conflicting feelings when viewed through a political lens are not unwarranted. Building on the disturbing courtroom that unfolds Ramen—His previous film, about the mechanisms of rising anti-immigrant sentiment—Fjord He traces the most delicate and fluid dynamics of modern democracy, in a story designed to provoke outrage as much as it provokes contemplation.
It is, on its surface, fairly simple. A remote, progressive Norwegian town becomes the new home of a deeply religious couple from Romania: software developer Mihai Georgiu (Sebastian Stan) and his Norwegian nurse wife, Lisbet (Renate Rincevi). Their strict evangelical lineage fuels rumors and prompts an investigation by child welfare services when one of their teenage children comes to school with unexplained bruises. However, this clash between citizens and state is not just a clash of systemic dynamics, but one of the insoluble dilemmas that emerge from ideological skirmishes. If one were to follow the arcs and trajectories of the characters, in the traditional sense, not much would change during the film’s 146 minutes. However, Mungiu’s controlled form, and his actors’ carefully restrained performances, turn the film’s thematic plateau into an inescapable minefield of moral inertia.
While its plot bears a passing resemblance to Bollywood educational dramas Ms. Chatterjee v. Norway– Movie based on Real events—FjordHans’s novels are designed (in the most precise technical sense) to seem more Socratic. However, from the opening images, in which a balding Stan imposes dangerously paternal towers on his children while showing them affection, it becomes clear that Mungiu is not just drawing from cultural (and perhaps personal) experience, but is crafting an uncanny appearance meant to sow doubt and exploit it emotionally. There is an inflexibility in how Gheorghius writes, as if they were contradictory embodiments of everything that modern Scandinavian society holds dear (from socialist values to professed freedom from religious dogma). However, the detailed humanity with which Mungiu sculpts these austere figures is transforming Fjord From simple thought experiment to exciting drama tinged with self-aware humour. It’s hard not to laugh at even the sharpest debate between Norwegian secularism and evangelical orthodoxy when the cross of the Norwegian flag flutters in the wind outside the character’s window, occupying half the frame. Where you’re going cannot be separated from where you’ve been, so Roman Mihai may also embody Norway’s entanglements with Christian extremism.
Stan has, of late, become the most controversial actor with his rise to prominence as a cog in the Marvel machine, between his Berlinale Best Actor-winning turn in the satirical film. A different man And his Oscar-nominated role as Donald Trump trainee. with FjordHe completes a more disconcerting transformation, as a terrifying father whose stillness embodies the severity of his beliefs, and whose tough love radiates across the screen in eerie colors, even (and especially) in the quiet moments. Meanwhile, Rensef follows her more radiant roles as a modern woman searching for herself The worst person in the world and Emotional value (Not to mention A different man Also) by juxtaposing her distinctly reserved appearance with the mystery of how she relates to her tyrannical husband, her five children of different ages, and their culture in general, behind closed doors. We only see what Mungiu wants us to see, as if the film were a court docket, but Mungiu’s lead actors confidently create beguiling actions and, in the process, conjure imaginative possibilities that are sure to instill everything from affection to contempt in the average viewer.
The couple’s older children, Elijah (Vanessa Siban) and Emmanuelle (Jonathan Cibrian-Prezzo), befriend their new neighbour’s daughter, a lithe girl named Nora (Henrike Lund Olsen), who seems intent on getting them into trouble. Jealousy at school and strange interactions near their homes suggest the possibility that their friendship could drive a wedge between the teenage siblings and their parents. But before that narrative can come to fruition, committed school personnel and the country’s fast-moving legal system act on circumstantial evidence to take Elijah, Emanuel, and their three younger siblings from their parents’ care, on suspicion of physical abuse.
The Georgios’ strict, biblical upbringing (in a country with a population that is 70 percent nonbelievers) highlights cultural stereotypes that sit alongside the regime’s real concerns. However, once these pre-existing concepts are revealed, Fjord It does not seek to deconstruct, challenge or enhance them. They are, instead, an essential aspect of the film’s background, existing in a constant form that lends the film’s subsequent court proceedings an entirely inescapable tendency. However, this predictability is integral to Mungiu’s approach to constructing an epic where answers, especially easy ones, never present themselves. The drama offers enough hints to ensure that you’ll come to quick conclusions about what did or didn’t happen, in a strictly realistic sense. But just as quickly, the film expands the thematic scope, in order to ask larger philosophical questions.
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Fjord ★★★1/2 (3.5/4 stars) |
It becomes a troubling stress test of progressive belief, focused not on the actual “right” or “wrong” of the issue, but on equality itself, and the preservation of democratic freedoms when the people at stake are rejected, hated, or even inherently harmful. “My beliefs are not on trial,” Mihai says at one point, after spending most of the film happily accepting support from corrupt extremists to get his children back. However, there is no escaping the feeling that he is right, whether his actions and methods should be disqualifying or not.
As the film goes on, one can conjure up a myriad of principled reasons – as many Norwegian characters do – for seeing the Georgios stripped of their rights as parents, right down to what appears to be the homophobia passed down to their young children. However, the foundation of democratic faith is the equal application of the law, and measuring these values against their more extreme manifestations is an exercise worth engaging in. FjordRealism or unrealism, it complicates what equality means in any nominally progressive society that values broad cultural pluralism. It is difficult not to wonder (and be troubled by) the open skepticism that Mungiu suggests, about the degree to which personal freedoms and beliefs can or should be violated.
Even if there is legal or moral validity to the state’s actions, the context of the Georgios being a minority in Norway—even if their religion promotes fascism elsewhere, such as Brazil or the United States—generates a broad David-and-Goliath-style structural reorientation of the film’s drama (a comparison made by even the film’s most zealous characters). In addition to its legal and moral dimensions, there is also the emotional element, the human element, depicted in complex colors by Stan and Rensvi, and enhanced by Mungiu’s roving camera as he sits us side by side with them in continuous shots, as observers and participants in the legal proceedings.
Beyond a point, the coldness of Mungiu’s signature muted blue palette is warmed by Mihai and Lisbet’s multifaceted presence, urging sympathy in a direction that any nominally liberal or left-wing viewer might understandably resist. Because it is in essence Fjord It is not a quest for answers, but rather a confrontation with never-ending questions about the limits of personal independence in a modern civilization that claims to be truly democratic. Even if one believes that these responsibilities should be delegated to the state, as one might do after watching FjordMungiu’s lens breaks down the Enlightenment’s alleged neutrality, revealing the inherent impasse of this so-called utopia.
This is the nature of human society. It’s friction and fractal. Something, some form of hypocrisy or contradiction, is always bound to seep out…but what do you do when you get to that place? What can you do? How do you stay upright when the greatest good involves inevitable harm, no matter where you land? It is this existential despair that Mungiu deals with, and from which the film’s drama emerges.
Perhaps the nature of faith is such that it is unshakable beyond a certain point, and only a few minds will be radically changed in even the most contentious judicial cases (not to mention the politically charged recipients of the Palme). But just in case Fjordthe film makes it necessary to recognize the cracks in an individual’s mental, emotional, and moral contours, if only to prevent their eventual collapse.
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