One of the unexpected successes of this year’s Cannes Film Festival is Cristian Mungiu’s family drama The Fjord for winning the Palme d’Or. In a rarity, a Romanian filmmaker has now won Cannes’ top prize twice. “It’s already nice to get one Palme d’Or,” he told French TV network Brut a few minutes after leaving the awards ceremony. “Getting two Palme d’Or? I don’t-I don’t know, a bit of a waste?” He said laughing. “There are a lot of good directors who never get it.”
The writer-director received his first Palme in 2007 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 daysa harrowing drama about a young college student’s attempt at an illegal abortion in the late 1980s, when communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu ruled Romania. This latest award of The Fjord it elevates Mungiu to the rare club of two-time winners—only nine other filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola, have achieved it in the festival’s 79-year history.
But even more surprising, in a year when a third of traditionally left-leaning films featured LGBTQ characters, The Fjord It is not a plea for progressive values—it is a critique of them. In particular, the image of liberal extremism that prides itself on tolerance but tends towards a lockstep ideology that reminds us of the ideology of the dictatorial group that ruled Mungiu’s country for decades.
In the film, mixed-race parents Gheorghius—IT consultant husband Mihai (Sebastian Stan) is Romanian, housewife Lisbet (Renata Reinsve) Norwegian—move their five children from Romania to a small town in Norway. A religious couple hopes to give their children a Bible quote (two teenagers, two children and an infant), despite the family’s gradual realization that society does not like religious things quietly but firmly.
But when a teacher notices unexplained bruises on one of the children, government officials step in and immediately separate the children from their mothers and fathers, placing the children in foster homes until a local court can decide whether or not they are being abused. Forced separation lasts for months. And a cloud of suspicion immediately hangs over the now tainted Gheorghius, the immediate “other”—whose preference for the Romanian “Familia Traditionala” is not considered conservative values but a threat.
The Norwegian government’s meddling in family matters may seem fantastical to the point of disbelief, but it actually has roots. “I read the first articles about such situations ten years ago,” Mungiu said at a press conference after the film’s premiere. “I finally started writing them four years ago. I went to Norway and talked to people involved in those situations: police, judges, NGOs, journalists. After ten years of efforts, I wrote, like, three pages before I sent this story to Sebastian. I said to him, ‘I think we finally have something to do together.'”
Stan, a familiar face in Hollywood for his Marvel film appearances as Bucky Barnes (aka the Winter Soldier) and Oscar-nominated 2024 for his time as Donald Trump Studentit seems odd to play an arthouse movie with a subtitle. But the Romanian-born actor has been a fan of Mungiu for a long time. “I noticed Cristian a long time ago,” said Stan in a press conference. “I think we first saw each other when he was testing Graduation at the New York Film Festival. Get me mom!”
That 2016 film, which won Mungiu the Best Director award at Cannes, follows a doctor who tries to influence his daughter’s final exams and get her a college scholarship. As usual in his films, Mungiu uses Graduation to examine how tyrannical organizations breed corruption among those in positions of power and have a negative impact on human life. In The Fjordthe same is true of the Norwegian view of the belief systems of people in other countries—especially if they are right-leaning.
“You’re talking about racism, aren’t you?” Stan said. “I grew up in a natural Romanian way. So I understood a lot of what happened in the text. How do we all deal with it? I think the only way to do it is to stay as honest as possible and think about your own behavior and values as well, and be the example you want to see in the world.”
Mingu emphasized that The Fjord it is not intended to condemn Norway. If anything, you give them credit for recently revising some strict rules to be more humane. “It is important for me to say that Norwegian law has changed between the time I started investigating and the time I was filming,” he said. “This is not a film about the conflict between Romania or Norway or anything like that, or a criticism of Norwegian society. This is a very complex approach for me and very complex. It is about the limits of intimacy and your freedom, and what happens when your personal values do not match the values of the society you wish to live in in this global world.”
American journalists at Cannes wondered whether a film so sympathetic to religious fanatics would play well in the US or whether it would be stymied by a liberal press that would be uncomfortable with the film’s political views. This Palme d’Or win now gives The Fjord more oxygen for breathing. Also cementing its place in the fall awards season conversation is its home distributor, Neon, which has notably produced all six past Palme d’Or winners—leading two, A parasite again Anorafor the Oscar win for Best Picture.
“I wouldn’t do the opposite story of this film, about progressive people living in traditional society. Because there, you don’t have rights,” added Mngiu. “You can only do this under a democracy. Freedom means you can follow your values, even if you live abroad and live in a different society.”
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