Fjord (Cristian Mungiu, 2026)
Mungiu’s opening shot makes us feel like we’ve unwittingly stumbled in on the smoggy silence of the aftermath. The aftermath of what, we don’t yet know but the looming presence of the otherwise handsome visage of Sebastian Stan, now bespectacled and balding, backlit by gloomy nordic white, suggests violence. Within the first half an hour, Mungiu provides a brief portrait of this Romanian family. Newly arrived amidst the fjords of Norway, the patriarch and his underlings are a devout christian bunch. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, except of course for the Jesus of it all. In fact, it is way too much Jesus per square inch in the Gheorghiu household, but everyone here is a believer not a prisoner, and Mungiu does well to not caricature these folks to the point of almost highlighting their uncharacteristic warmth and hospitality. They are each a model citizen, excessively placid and genteel. All this against the stark cold, atheism of the neighbourhood.
This seems like a perfect set up to tee off the plot. The Gheorghius have been accused of physically abusing their children prompting their school counsellor to not just register a criminal case against the mum and dad but also summon child protective services to wrest their children away from them. Note that the abuse here concerns what the patriarch would later define as an occasional correctional slap on the bum (although the wounds on the daughter spotted by the counsellor are on her face and shoulder).
Watching this as a child of Asian parents is, to say the least, interesting, for I have had my fair share of the hand (and other flying domestic objects). I am not fishing for sympathy because this was such a common occurrence. Often while playing outside we’d hear other kids get ‘it’, prompting my friends and I to solemnly look at each other and sigh. Not because we thought it was unjust, but because we’d be a man down in our gully cricket team.
Might be safe to suggest that today there is an almost universal condemnation of physical abuse of any kind. Nevertheless, these are vestiges of a once popular parenting culture and cultures everywhere don’t exactly arrive at ‘modernity’ on the same terms at the same time. Then again is the secular rational modern all that it is made out to be?
As the Gheorghiu’s stand accused for their crimes, they find themselves on trial for something far more elemental: their views. As they deal with an alien and opaque legal system there are instances of their faith butting against the antiseptic secular world they inhabit (Mihai on the school piano, Lisbet whispering a prayer and sneaking a cross into a casket, the children secluded within their internet-free lives). Granted their values are extremely conservative, but Mungiu is keen on not just asking, but making us the ‘liberal’ audience ask, so what? For Mungiu, it is the totalising progressive western values that are on trial instead.
Mungiu isn’t working with facts as much as he is with perception. In fact, what I first admired as restraint, I now think of as cautious elision and manipulation. It’s simple: Fjord wants us on the side of the Gheorghius. So much so that the neighbour, counsellor and CPS rep are intentionally cast and act as the most Karen version of themselves: self-righteous, unsympathetic and seemingly unconscionable. The lawyer for the CPS is a bully whereas the Gheorghius’ is painfully humane. Even if Mihai appears coiled, Rensive who cuts a Mother Teresa like figure, is inconsolable. And even if Mihai enlists the far-right in his campaign for justice, their presence seems to be played for laughs.
Of the elisions: We don’t see the slap. We barely hear them raise their voice. We don’t see the parents teach their kids conservative values. We hear little of the children’s testimony. While in reality the CPS are legally bound to non-disclosure, the film is happy to use this too to its advantage. Clearly, Mungiu stacks the chips in his favour. And throughout the film he contrives a series of ‘gotcha’ moments as in: Ha! Did you think progressives can’t be brutes?
All this is an interesting thought experiment, but the obfuscatory nature of the plotting suggests that Mungiu may not have as much faith in his own argument here. A smarter film may progressively disclose the ‘facts’ of the case, even if they are simply triangulated through perspectives. This would require the film to surrender any idea of a protagonist and play out within a realm of ideology. Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall does this to much better effect, until it becomes too cute with kid’s testimony. While Anatomy unfolds to reveal the essential unknowability of truth and the subjective nature of justice, Fjord appears fixed. Its restraint may suggest a scalpel but I argue that its staging is a hammer.
There is a current running through this film: the relationship between the eldest Gheorghiu daughter and her neighbour. The relationship isn’t spelled out, thank god. But it is a shoe waiting to drop. And when it does, the moment is not overtly dramatic and thus all the more tragic. It is a moment that reckons with the fact that the trial, its protagonists and antagonists, and thus the film has elided the most important aspect of the case: the children. With this ending Mungiu gives what most cases don’t: the children their choice. It may appear tokenistic but it’s a choice nonetheless.