Cristian Mungiu, what happened to you in Norway? Listen, I understand what you’re going for with Fjord. I may have even had similar experiences trying to connect with Norwegians when I was traveling there. But just cause you maybe didn’t enjoy overpaying for a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder doesn’t require a slow evisceration of their society in movie form. What are other excited toursits supposed to do?
Romanian engineer Mihai Gheorghiu (Sebastian Stan), is convinced by his wife Lisbet (Renate Reinsve) to move back to Norway, to raise their children including teens Emmanuel (Jonathan Ciprian Breazu) and Elia (Vanessa Ceban). The kids get put into Norwegian school, but quickly draw the attention of counselor Gunda (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) when Elia talks about bruises and how they might have come from home. Norwegian law dictates Elia and Emmanuel be removed from the home for their health, causing a frantic Mihai/Lisbet to reach out to anyone for help, including neighbor Mia Halberg (Lisa Carlehed) and their daughter Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen).
Fjord really wants to be Anatomy of a Fall. Mungiu has crafted a Kafkaesque nightmare of a moral quandary this quasi immigrant family finds themselves in. Usually those situations come from the more religious people suffocating any freedoms away from a liberal person. But this is Norway, where more liberal lifestyles have incurred an equal and opposite response. While you can feel Gunda trying to do right by the kids, the circumstances where they proactively take action are based on flimsy justifications at best, tainted by Gunda’s personal prejudice against religious group think as well. And because Mihai and Lisbet don’t really have any power to influence anything, they’re forced to assimilate and take the quiet judgment or risk societal ostracizing and eventually likely jailtime. Each character takes turns doing something in moral grey areas, muddying the waters further on what is exactly right or wrong here. Emmanuel and Elia are well behaved and mostly follow the rules while being very happy; conversely, Noora is pretty depressed and is teenage acting out, but only when she starts getting into Elia/Emmanuel’s religion does her parents start to worry about her more. Fjord is the classic bargain/compromise every immigrant decides when they take the leap to move to a new place, and the worst case scenario when you realize your bargain might not go your way.
A fjord is the most beautiful natural world feature I have ever seen. Essentially it’s giant mountains/mountain islands surrounded by water. Cristian Mungiu makes those gigantic formations feel suffocating, lording over the small town Mihai and Lisbet have found themselves in. They’re cold and unfeeling, with avalanches occurring semi frequently from their mountain tops so the schools have to prep for them accordingly (nice metaphor, dude). Those gigantic outdoor seascapes are juxtaposed wonderfully with the packed in courtroom sequences, modern and caustic. All the interrogation is riveting to see, as each parent realizes that their testimonies are more than likely going to be met with a prison sentence, because their beliefs are seen as “undesirable” and their kids can learn the “right values” better if they were not present. The movie gets a little subplot heavy traying to squeeze every angle of this story seen, but those are small potatoes compared to the rich discussion and wonderfully woven together Rorschach test of a screenplay Mungiu concocts for us to bear witness.
Renate Reisnsve still has the magic touch. It was only a matter of time before she was in a Palme D’Or winner. And Sebastian Stan continues to prove he might be the best actor Marvel has ever utilized/produced. Ok, I think Chadwick Boseman might have had him beat, but he’s still homegrown talent for the MCU. Let’s send Bucky with Reinsve to the Backrooms; that’s a weird combo that just might work…or it’s the Doomsday plot to destroy superhero movies forever.