{"id":455354,"date":"2026-05-18T19:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455354\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T19:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:13:08","slug":"fjord-review-cristian-mungius-brilliantly-knotted-social-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455354\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Fjord’ Review: Cristian Mungiu’s Brilliantly Knotted Social Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAn actual avalanche happens in the background of an early scene in \u201cFjord<\/a>,\u201d as snow gathers and masses and tumbles down a hill behind the school in a small, close-knit Norwegian village, eventually stalling before it becomes any kind of disaster. Later in the film, another happens in the same spot, this time breaking closer to the schoolhouse in a misty white burst, but no one is fazed: Protocol is followed, everyone heads inside, and the day proceeds as planned. Nature is no big deal in Cristian Mungiu<\/a>\u2018s superb new drama of systemic order and individual disarray, which takes in the sprawling waters and monochrome mountainscapes of the region with a placidly appreciative eye. It\u2019s human nature, concentrated and scrutinized and made ugly amid this splendor, that causes all the alarm.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sixth feature from the Romanian writer-director \u2014 and the fifth to premiere in competition at Cannes, 19 years after \u201c4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days\u201d landed the Palme d\u2019Or \u2014 is his first to be set and shot outside his home country, with an international cast intelligently fronted by Sebastian Stan<\/a> (in a rare onscreen reminder of his Romanian roots) and Norway\u2019s Renate Reinsve<\/a>. Many a great world cinema auteur has come unstuck when venturing farther afield, but in Mungiu\u2019s case, the journey makes perfect sense: So much of his work has been preoccupied with globalization, migration and cultural divides between eastern and western Europe that \u201cFjord\u201d feels immediately of a piece with his searching, bristling oeuvre, despite its crisp new setting.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf we\u2019re well accustomed to seeing Mungiu unpicking the corrupt workings of various Romanian institutions \u2014 from church to state, healthcare to education \u2014 \u201cFjord\u201d presents his keen anti-authoritarian eye with a new challenge: finding the moral wrinkles and manifold ambiguities in the ostensibly more orderly, progressive systems governing Norway, made all the more difficult to determine by the troubling, sometimes unreadable actions of outsider characters who fall afoul of social norms, and perhaps the law too. As a small-town case of possible child abuse is blown up into an international cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre protesting perceived religious persecution, Mungiu\u2019s typically intricate, immaculate script repeatedly steers the viewer away from any firm conclusion or confident judgment on the many, many matters at hand.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing several serene establishing shots of the rippling titular inlet, set to the austere instrumental strains of \u201cAmazing Grace,\u201d Mungiu\u2019s first interior scene places us on the back foot straight away \u2014 opening without context on a strangely solemn domestic tableau, as teenagers Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Emmanuel (Jonathan Ciprian Breazu) embrace their parents, Mihai (Stan) and Lisbet (Reinsve), with a dutiful stiffness that speaks more of instruction than spontaneous affection. \u201cYou need to learn to admit when you\u2019re wrong,\u201d says Mihai, quietly but not softly admonishing them for some apparent, unidentified misdemeanor. If a lesson has just been learned, it doesn\u2019t look like a fun one.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeet the Gheorghiu family, recently relocated from Mihai\u2019s homeland in Romania to Lisbet\u2019s native Norway following the death of his parents, in the interests of giving their five children a safer, gentler, more domestically centered way of life. The small village they\u2019ve chosen as their home is wholesome and welcoming, and everyone there knows everyone\u2019s business: Their next-door neighbor Mats (Markus Scarth T\u00f8nseth) is a friendly family man who also happens to be the principal at the kids\u2019 inclusive new school, while Mihai\u2019s new job \u2014 an IT position for which he\u2019s severely over-qualified, but these are the sacrifices you make to live in a Nordic paradise \u2014 is connected to his place in the church.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat church, by the way, is of the sternly Evangelical variety, and the Gheorghius take it very seriously indeed. Daily prayers and Bible study sessions are strictly regimented for the children; cellphones, computer games and secular music, among many other things, are verboten. Though the locals are generally accepting and open-minded, the family\u2019s pious conservatism does mark them as other in a society where agnostic liberalism is the status quo: From early on, the children have to be cautioned by their teachers against any kind of religious expression at school. Still, that difference doesn\u2019t stop Elia from forming a fast, close friendship with Mats\u2019 similarly aged stepdaughter Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) \u2014 an intense bond that the chilly Mihai, who isn\u2019t shy to voice and teach his conviction that a family can only begin with a man and a woman, regards somewhat askance.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Elia turns up in gym class with bruises on her body \u2014 a day after a domestic altercation with Lisbet that Mungiu also depicts in interrupted fashion \u2014 her teachers are concerned, and quick to act. Child services are notified, and Elia and Emmanuel questioned: When they admit that their parents will often dole out \u201ca slap to the butt\u201d as punishment, they and their siblings are swiftly placed in protective care, as required by Norwegian law. Blindsided by this sudden turn of events, their parents don\u2019t deny the accusations, but do get tangled up in semantics: While Mihai doesn\u2019t see \u201cslapping\u201d as equivalent to \u201chitting,\u201d the authorities see no difference.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is just the first point of contention in a minefield of cultural barriers, letter-of-the-law distinctions, personal prejudices and perhaps some plain mistruth here and there. It\u2019s never made precisely clear just how severely, or how knowingly, Mihai and Lisbet have harmed their children, while both Stan\u2019s and Reinsve\u2019s measured, tightly clenched performances are courageously dour in affect, inviting no easy sympathy from viewers, whatever their degree of culpability. As this community scandal grows, mutates and eventually reaches the judiciary \u2014 not to mention the court of social media, thanks to Mihai\u2019s highly emotive YouTube videos calling for global solidarity from fellow Evangelicals \u2014 the stakes shift: In certain lines of questioning from the prosecution, the Gheorghius\u2019 personal beliefs seem to be on trial as much as their parenting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese multiple, variously sized arcs of dramatic tension, political consciousness and philosophical inquiry are ingeniously disentangled \u2014 before again being densely intermeshed \u2014 by Mungiu and editor Mircea Olteanu to form a kind of Rohrschach procedural thriller in which the roles of protagonist and antagonist, victim and aggressor, are very much up for discussion. \u201cFjord\u201d often darts around the perspectives of the most innocent party here, the Gheorghiu children, to symphonically conduct the verbal and ideological warfare of the elder parties who claim to be acting in their best interests. The two-and-a-half-hour result is riveting, acted with careworn nuance down the line by an excellent ensemble, yawing this way and that in terms of narrative and emotional momentum, even as we sense early on that no clear, cathartic resolution will ever be forthcoming. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s shot, like Mungiu\u2019s last two features \u201cR.M.N.\u201d and \u201cGraduation,\u201d in coolly ravishing widescreen by the gifted DP Tudor Vladimir Panduru, in tones of sleety, silvery blue that scarcely warm up as this saga spreads across seasons: Action is layered in the film\u2019s deep, expansive frames to an extent that demands our intent, undivided gaze, to catch the incidental conversation playing out in the middle distance, the nervy surveillance off to one side, or another avalanche building in the background to nobody\u2019s great concern. Everything is happening at all times in \u201cFjord,\u201d as befits a film sharply attuned to the world\u2019s ever-expanding possibilities for movement, misunderstanding and conflict \u2014 a great many of them playing out in one pretty, postcard-scaled Norwegian settlement, lapped by snow and water, with the opaque impurity of ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An actual avalanche happens in the background of an early scene in \u201cFjord,\u201d as snow gathers and masses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[10532,92709,93,92710,61,60,270,2982,47639],"class_list":["post-455354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-cristian-mungiu","tag-entertainment","tag-fjord","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-renate-reinsve","tag-sebastian-stan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}