The first thing writer-director Cristian Mungiu wants you to think about in Fjord is grace. A concept of virtue, of kindness, and of benevolence. A concept that will strain our perception of justice as this family navigates a troublesome journey.
Mungiu doesn’t just present us with a situation; he presents us with a challenge. It’s a struggle against Child Protection, a system often seen as essential and committed to a child’s best interests. On the other side are the Gheorghius, a deeply conservative immigrant family, one with religious and traditional conservative values deep in their veins. This may not be the case for all viewers, but it certainly let me experience something far outside my own bubble as an experiment in perspective and empathy. This investigation of child abuse functions as this perseverance for truth that only holds weight based on bias and point of view and doesn’t let you so easily pick a side. Mungiu isn’t just asking what we consider to be child abuse, but what truth means from every perspective.
It also becomes a confrontation of religious intensity and how, from an outside look, it can be both effective and destructive. The best example of this comes from the relationship between the Gheorghiu children Elia and Emmanuel, and the neighbor girl, Noora. Though their upbringings clash, they come to benefit each other on a moral ground, seeming to help shape each other into better emotionally intelligent humans, though not without some failings. It’s also seen in how conservative support affects the Gheorghiu family patriarch, Mihai (Sebastian Stan), and the appearance of the Gheorghiu family during this trial. Initially hopeful, but it carries a negative connotation for those associated, regardless of the situation.
Plus, with how Mungiu and these actors portray this lived-in community, this anxious effort and outside perspective can become easy to get swept up in. Adding in insanely talented and subtle actors like Stan and Renate Reinsve immensely bolsters how we’re able to delve into these characters and understand their motives even through their small gestures that Mungiu and cinematographer Tudor Vladimir Panduru shoot so carefully. The landscape then acts as a barrier to external modernization and also as a mechanism to dwarf these minute human concerns that can, in the moment, seem so grand.
Fjord may not have any truly big sequences, but instead quietly builds the tension to draw you closer into this story. Plus, it leaves you with this grace note of faith and wonder that left me simply speechless as the credits rolled. As a provocative filmmaker I’ve always been interested in exploring, Fjord has awakened me to the magic of Mungiu and the start of a possibly harrowing, but deeply affecting journey I’m eager to experience.
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