I was curious how Cristian Mungiu's "Fjord" would be received this fall. The Palme d'Or winner has become a culture-war flashpoint, and critics are more split on it than you might expect.
The controversy comes down to the premise: a devout Romanian father (Sebastian Stan) and his Norwegian wife (Renate Reinsve) relocate their five children to her remote coastal hometown, where local child services accuse them of abuse and seize the kids after a disciplining incident. The story is drawn from the real case of the Bodnariu family, renamed Gheorghiu here, whose children were removed by Norwegian authorities in 2015.
Some have taken this as a critique of progressive overreach, an anti-"political correctness" statement from Mungiu. The director's own description of the film as being about "left-wing fundamentalism" hasn't helped.
Online, people have branded it "a MAGA movie." Sebastian Stan, speaking to Variety at TIFF, attributes the label largely to “people who haven’t even seen the film ” — and pushes back on the idea that one side has all the answers: “since when did it become normal to believe that one camp has all the answers and never makes any mistakes?”
Well, TIFF audiences have now seen it, and my feed is full of critics angry about what they take the movie to be saying. You can read the reactions below.
I really do think the complexities of "Fjord" are getting lost in the festival setting, the hive mind is strong here, its nuances hijacked by people quicker to criticize than to contemplate.
What Mungiu is after is the discomfort liberal societies feel toward those who don't fit the accepted cultural mold. How tolerant can a society be when confronted with beliefs it fundamentally rejects? This is a film about extremism feeding extremism. Everyone believes they're morally right. Everyone is trapped inside ideology, fear, and self-righteousness. No one can step outside themselves long enough to listen.
You don't see this every day: a major filmmaker, mid-release, admitting he's just not very good at his job. That’s exactly what Aaron Sorkin has done as “The Social Reckoning” dies a slow death in theaters.