‘Fjord,’ Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner, strikes a nerve while asking questions of progressives

TORONTO (AP) — The title of Cristian Mungiu’s previous film, “R.M.N.” — MRI in Romanian — is an apt metaphor for what Mungiu aims to do in his movies.

Since his seminal 2008 abortion drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days,” the Romanian filmmaker has loosely based his rigorously realistic films on real events, using them to explore the larger social forces shaping our world. It is not, anyone would grant, the easiest way to go about making movies.

“R.M.N.,” for instance, was based on a 2020 incident when Sri Lankan immigrant bakery workers were harassed in a rural Romanian village. It captured a familiar global clash involving tradition, migrants and xenophobia. The film even recreated, in one unbroken 17-minute take, a town hall meeting you can find on YouTube.

“I don’t like writing screenplays in which I try to invent a story starting from ideas,” Mungiu says. “My effort is to understand the things happening next to me.”

Mungiu’s latest, “Fjord,” draws from a real 2015 episode in Norway. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star as a Christian couple with five children who have immigrated from Romania to Norway. They are warmly welcomed by a progressive rural community, but their traditional and religious ways are increasingly scrutinized until their children are seized by the state.

The film, which Neon opens in theaters Friday, has been widely celebrated. In May, it won the Palme d’Or, Mungiu’s second time winning the Cannes Film Festival’s top honor. Romania has since selected “Fjord” as its Oscar entry for best international feature.

But “Fjord” is also something unusual. It’s the rare art house movie to pose uncomfortable questions for largely left-leaning audiences. Mungiu is himself politically liberal, but “Fjord” dramatizes a progressive brand of closed-mindedness and sanctimony that, he feels, rivals traits of the far right.

“The extreme left behaves the same,” Mungiu said over coffee in a recent interview. “They are certain that they hold the truth. The only thing you do is divide the society to the level of division that exists today. We don’t live in society. We live in bubbles, on different shores of the same river.”

“This is what this film does, boldly,” he adds. “It speaks out and says things that we all feel but don’t dare say aloud.”

Making a social drama that doesn’t preach to the choir

“Fjord,” as in previous Mungiu films, is shot with an objective, seemingly neutral perspective. But as the family’s case proceeds through the Norwegian legal system, Mungiu seems to question whether the liberal Scandinavian society is punishing the Gheorghiu family for the alleged slap of a child or scrutinizing their fundamentalist Christian practices.

Mungiu hoped his film, his first set outside of Romania, would touch a nerve.

“Absolutely. This is what we aimed for,” he says. “But it’s better than we expected.”

Still, the attention for “Fjord” has also brought what Mungiu calls some misinterpretation of his intensions. Some have even labeled it “a MAGA movie,” a description that Mungiu and his stars have pushed back on. For Mungiu, there has to be room in cinema that goes beyond preaching to the choir.

“It doesn’t mean, not even for a second, that I encourage the conservative view of the world,” Mungiu says. “But nowadays it’s considered that if you don’t use your energy as a filmmaker to make a film directly against that, it’s a big sin. Most of the films that people produce today are for or against something. These films don’t create a dialogue. Nobody else will watch them but people in this bubble. The film confirms to them they are already on the good side of things. The others are guilty.”

A polarization that goes much further than Norway

While playing “Fjord” at film festivals, Mungiu has stressed that this story could been set in any liberal society. He believes the same evolution of leftist ideals throughout Europe and in the United States is part of what’s fueling political polarization.

“Show a little bit more understanding,” says Mungiu, addressing progressives. “Try to be less dogmatic. The general habit is to label people. But you pretend to be smarter. I have more expectations from you.”

“This is a bit dangerous,” he adds, alluding to Romania’s 20th century history. “I come from a Communist past where somebody else knew better than you what is good for you.”

The heightened attention around “Fjord” makes the 58-year-old filmmaker a little uneasy. He knows it’s partly because of the fans of his stars and the Palme award — neither of which, he notes, signifies much about a movie’s worth. The criminally underseen “R.M.N.,” he acknowledges, was more deserving of awards than “Fjord.”

But Mungiu also feels the movie carries with it a vital, even urgent message. When “Fjord” won the Palme, Mungiu said in his acceptance speech that society had become “radicalized” — split down the middle, with one side judging other and neither communicating any longer. He called his film “a pledge against any type of fundamentalism.”

“It’s very dangerous if we continue like this,” he says. “We have seen in the U.S. that we are seconds away from having this huge clash, like a physical clash between these two groups. We need to do something while we still have time.”