‘R.M.N’: Cristi Mungiu Tackles Xenophobia in 21st Century Europe [Cannes]

In “R.M.N,” you get the sense, much like the Dardennes, that Cristi Mungiu hasn’t necessarily evolved his well-known style, but stuck by it these last 15 years. That’s fine, he’s given us great fis over this time span (“Graduation,” “Beyond the Hills), but at the same time his brand of cinema doesn’t feel as fresh it used to.

“R.M.N.” kicks off with a young boy, Rudi, who has stopped speaking and is now afraid of going out alone. He’s seen something during a token walk in the forrest that he can’t even reveal to his parents.

Rudi’s father Matthias (Marin Grigore) Abruptly returns from working elsewhere, and bruttishly makes life miserable for the two women in his life, including Rudy’s mother, Ana. Then we’re presented to Csilla (Judith State), a boss at the local baked goods factory who is Matthias’ lover. She desperately needs minimum wage workers at work, but no one from the town wants to work for that low sum of money. That’s when Csilla decides to hire three EU-sponsored workers from Sri Lanka. They are hands-on at their job, Csilla doesn’t regret the hires and, in fact, believes it was a great decision. The local community doesn’t.

There’s a masterful 17-minute static camera long-take near the end of “R.M.N.” that is the highlight of this latest film from the Romanian master. Residents from the small town gather in a church to discuss the sudden appearance of the Sri Lankans. The people overwhelmingly want them gone, calling for a boycott of the bakery and complaining about the “germs” these foreigners are bringing to the town by having their hands touch the community bread. It’s an encapsulating scene, making you feel bottled into the bigotry that can come when integration shows up inside a closed-off society.

It’s at that moment that you realize what Mungui is truly trying to say. This is a tale of 21st century bigotry. Meanwhile, Rudi still can’t speak, whatever he saw scarred him to his core. Mungiu uses this plot device to metaphorically speak of our fears of the unknown. Was it a bear that Rudi saw? A dead body? Mungiu tells us it doesn’t matter, what matters is that Rudi is as fearful of what he saw as the townspeople are of the Sri Lankan’s.

Back in 2007, Mungiu primed the Romanian movement by winning the Palme d’Or for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” Ever since then, he’s had dabbled in the same style, which has been immensely influential in European cinema these last 10 years; an abundance on long-takes, wide-angled shots, abrupt endings and ambiguous storytelling continue to be his trademark.

Mungiu creates a modern-day crucible that could only be made in 2022. It’s turns out to be a mournful treatise on EU-influence, bigotry, a flailing economy and globalism. [B/B+]