Every family has their secrets. In fact, if a family is not at least partially dysfunctional, even superficially, then there is something much more concerning at play. Very rarely do I ever promote the idea of imperfection as being the ideal, but there is something to be said about how cultures tend to view familial structures, particularly in the relationships between children and their parents. I was personally fortunate enough to grow up in quite a loving family, but even in certain instances, tensions can flare up to the point where choice words are exchanged, and a few hands are raised in favour of discipline. It’s not to advocate for physical punishment so much as it is an attempt to acknowledge that many parents find value in this form of discipline, which has become quite a contentious subject. Cristian Mungiu is certainly fascinated enough by this debate, as it becomes the foundation for Fjord, his scathing social issues drama in which he steps out of his native Romania for the first time in his storied career, setting sail for the wide-open lakeside landscapes of pastoral Norway, settling in a small village along one of the many titular bodies of water that have become definitive of the country. The story follows Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu, who have just moved to the village – he is a mild-mannered engineer from Romania, while she is a nurse originally from Norway, which means this move is an act of homecoming for her. They arrive with their five children, and while they are initially received warmly, it becomes clear that their lifestyle – one dictated by ferocious faith and steady discipline – does not at all align with the beliefs of their new neighbours and the community at large, since most people prefer a secular life, which stands in stark contrast to these new arrivals. It doesn’t take long for the community to subtly rebel against their new residents, which plunges Mihai and Lisbet into a state of anguish after it is determined that they are destructive forces in the lives of their children. A harrowing social realist drama that is not at all subtle when it comes to how it delivers certain aspects of its story, while being compelling enough in structure and style to draw us in, Fjord is a fascinating piece of filmmaking, and a work that is going to provoke a lot of discourse around its central themes.

There are few topics more tricky to represent on screen than religion and the role faith plays in the lives of a large portion of the population. It’s a contentious topic, and one that becomes increasingly more difficult to elegantly portray on screen without seeming like a particular agenda is being pushed, regardless of the position you take. Fjord establishes its key debate relatively fast: an extremely religious family from Romania, a country where an enormous portion of the population considers religion an important and immovable part of their lives, move to Norway, where secularity is far more common. Two entirely different societies separated by only a few countries, which inevitably is going to lead to some tension when one community infringes on the other. Mungiu is very smart in terms of how he refuses to immediately take a side on the debate – it does help that the impetus for this story is in reality, recounting the events that surrounded a Romanian family whose fervent religious beliefs were seen as confrontational to the more atheistic principles of their small Norwegian community, and ultimately had their children taken away from them after it was decided that small incidents of discipline would be entirely reworked to make the parents seem abusive. From this, the director finds fertile ground for quite an intense character study of two communities that would be considered perfectly copacetic had it not been for one group feeling morally and intellectually superior to the other, which in turn decided to increase their own beliefs to combat the very clear attack on their morals. It’s a tense and challenging story that has its roots firmly in the conversation around liberal and conservative values, attempting to determine whether the two truly can exist in perfect harmony by showing the extent of one belief system infringing on the other in ways that can massively overstep the well-maintained boundaries. As the well-worn adage goes, good fences make good neighbours – but as we see throughout Fjord, one of the downsides of living in a community where neighbourly values are embedded in the fabric of the culture is that one belief system can immediately assert itself as oppositional to anything that even vaguely goes against its principles, which can have disastrous results. 

Over the course of two decades, Mungiu has proven that he is not interested in making films that provide easy answers, and while Fjord seems to have a relatively conventional premise, there is a complexity to the story that becomes much more evident as we work our way through the film. There comes a point relatively early on in the narrative where we simply cannot avoid acknowledging the discomfort that shrouds the story, and where the real conversation begins. The reality of Fjord is that it exists in a culture where religion is villainised to the point of becoming almost taboo to discuss in contemporary art. This is not without reason, as we’ve seen countless examples of real-world situations where both physical and psychological harm has been done in the name of belief, which stretches back centuries, and has placed a lot of emphasis on the tensions that emerge between those who do believe in something and those who find the notion absurd. Mungiu is someone who relishes being able to challenge the audience, and at absolutely no point in Fjord do we know how he personally identifies. Instead, he uses this clear ambiguity as a means to build a tense and confrontational story of two warring factions fighting for dominance, where one wholeheartedly believes that they are on the right side of the moral aisle, not realising that there is no objective truth, regardless of how much they both seem to wholeheartedly believe that there is. The core of Fjord is not determining whether religion is useful or not (if anything, it is very objective in how it shows the lives of both believers and atheists can be fulfilling and happy,  emphasising the importance of following your own belief system, whatever it may be), but rather in how it can be weaponised as a means to divide, which can often have relentlessly difficult results when it comes to something as harrowing as what we see presented throughout this film. As a whole, Fjord proves to have a very distinct perspective, albeit one that does take its time to reach a particular conceptual point – and it is from here that so much of the film spirals into something much more profound, while also never becoming too overly didactic.

Not only is Fjord the first time the director has stepped outside of his native Romania for a film, its also by far his most notable as far as stars go, since it was formed through a collaboration between Mungiu and two incredibly gifted actors in the form of Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, reuniting after their exceptional work in A Different Man, and creating a pair of characters that are similarly very complex. Their performances here are quite impressive – neither actor seems to be stepping too far afield from what we usually expect from them, but they’re both nonetheless very good at playing into the specific narrative beats that define this film. Stan in particular is quite strong, since he is used to playing more dashing, heroic characters, and takes quite a left turn with Mihai, a man who is by all accounts just an ordinary individual, but who has a sinister quality that the film deliberately keeps quite ambiguous, intentionally never revealing whether he is truly a malicious, abusive individual or simply the product of his surroundings. Reinsve is the opposite, being far more open and sensitive – but even her performance feels purposefully quite ambiguous, since we aren’t given much access to her mind. Both actors master the ability to remain stoic and silent, with long stretches of wordless acting emerging from both of them as they film attempts to decode the inner architecture of their minds, revealing deeper complexities beneath them both that play into the story’s more vague qualities. They’re excellent and bring so much nuance to characters that are intentionally quite chilly and detached from emotion for the most part, as a means to emphasise the moments where they do succumb to the intensity of their situation, proving that subtlety can sometimes be the best approach to such challenging subject matter. They’re supported by a strong ensemble, which includes Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Markus Tønseth, Lisa Carlehed and Lisa Loven Kongsli as members of their community who become involved in their lives, often not for the reasons that they would have hoped when first deciding to move to this idyllic hamlet, and eventually revealing something much darker about this community and what it represents.

Fjord is by no means an easy film, and anyone expecting a story that moves coherently between its various discursive points has evidently never encountered Mungiu’s work in the past, since very rarely do we encounter filmmakers who splendour in putting the audience through the emotional wringer as him, although this does suggest that there is something slightly more insidious about his intentions, when in reality it is actually the opposite, since he has a fervent desire to unravel the various thorny, complex aspects of the human condition, through the lens of dark and challenging social fables. This film forces the viewer to sit in a state of discomfort, the kind that goes from frustrating to outright unbearable, made even worse by the fact that he refuses to make his position known, and is very careful to not provide too much context into the domestic lives of these people, so we are constantly trying to determine whether they’re actually abusive or just the victims of a social system that views anyone with their belief system to be inherently negative and not welcome in their community. Tonally, the film can be quite an ordeal, since we are plunged into a state of deep despair as we navigate the day-to-day lives of these characters who are simply trying to find answers, working to resolve a problem that only compounds with every new revelation, leading to the two main characters constantly teetering dangerously close to the edge of complete collapse. Like these characters, the audience is forced to observe how bureaucracy – put in place to keep everything in order – becomes a tool of oppression, a harrowing device designed to hurt those who don’t align with the status quo. Mungiu’s bleak, haunting style, in which he adopts a more austere tonal and visual approach, is perfectly woven into this film, which may be set in far more idyllic surroundings than his urbane psychological thrillers that often took place in squalid Eastern European alleyways and corridors, but is just as uncomfortable and tense, carrying a complexity that is brilliantly rendered throughout the film. Fjord knows how to captivate the audience, and even when it is intentionally impenetrable and uncomfortable, it feels genuinely engaging in a way that is nothing if not wholeheartedly impressive.

By the time we reach the end, we aren’t entirely sure whose side we are on, or whether we actually agree with the judgment asserted throughout Fjord – and perhaps this vagueness is the entire purpose, especially when we’re dealing with a filmmaker like Mungiu, who relishes in moral and social ambiguity.  It’s not an easy film to unpack, and we can argue that a lot of the film’s message is revealed not during the 140 minutes we spend with these characters, but rather in the aftermath, where our own personal interpretation intercuts with those of others in what I can only imagine will be a string of intense conversations, each one revealing something much deeper about society and how it perceive certain issues. We can’t legitimately say that Fjord is anywhere close to the director’s best work, solely because anyone who essentially helped kickstart an entire artistic movement like the Romanian New Wave in the form of his masterpieces 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Beyond the Hills is never going to find too much room when crafting a relatively conventional legal thriller. However, it’s undeniable that Fjord is a film that is equal parts challenging and uncomfortable, a skill that can only emerge from a director who has the confidence to take such bold, relentlessly harrowing swings, being entirely aware of the challenges that come with such a story. It’s a film that will undoubtedly inspire a lot of conversation and curiosity amongst viewers, who will likely try to unravel the various layers that constitute this film, seeking answers that are simply not found in the confines of this story, but rather in the discussions that emerge in the aftermath. It is undeniably intense and often relies on a sense of discomfort to convey its message – but there is nevertheless method to the madness, and Mungiu takes the time to unpack the many complex ideas that define this story, turning Fjord from a relatively straightforward legal thriller and transforming it into something much deeper and far more intimidating.