In Christian Mungiu's films, Romania is a country full of contradictions where the past and the present precariously co-exist side by side. It's that friction of old and new, tradition and modern world, belief and secular he pits against each other that works so perfectly as tension filled dramas - 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Beyond the Hills, Graduation. He does it again with Fjord, his first film not set in Romania, with two international stars - Sebastian Stan (Captain America: Winter Soldier, Apprentice) and Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value, Backrooms) playing a cross-national Romanian Evangelical Christian couple, who just moved from Romania to Norway with their 5 kids.
Mihai Gheorghiu (Stan)'s large Romanian family moves into a small close-knit Norwegian town after he gets recruited as an IT support for the town's school. His parents have passed on, Lisbet (Reinsve)'s parents are close by as a support system, their church congregations is in town, and they want their children to have a better future, so their move was a logical choice, even if it means Mihai takes a job that he is totally overqualified for (he was a structural engineer in Romania). Lisbet, who works in the medical field, gets a job at a town's nursing facility. They move into a house neighboring the school principal and his retired lawyer wife, who have a teenage daughter, Noora, about the same age as Elia and Emmanuel, Mihai and Lisbet (Reinsve)'s two older children. They all attend the same school.
Generally welcoming and friendly, the townsfolk, for their liberal Northern European secular sensibility, Gheorghius are a little old fashioned and strict when it comes to their children - no cell phones, video games or social media allowed. They observe daily prayers and bible studies. It is fine what they do at home, stay at home, but they draw the line when Gheorghiu children start singing 'Amazing Grace' at school unprompted. The kids are reprimanded and Gheorghius is told that there's a strict separation of church and state, that a student can't influence another with their religious beliefs.
Things get bumpy when the school's PE teacher notices bruises on Elia's body. Upon examination and questioning Elia and Emmanuel, the school administrator become concerned that it might be child abuse at home and they notify child protective services right away. Elia and Emmanuel, the corporal punishment at home is a normal thing in their household. 'Slap in the butt' happens when they misbehave. But it is a big deal in Norway and they take allegations very seriously. The child protective services promptly take away all of Gheorghiu children, including the baby, whom Lisbet is still nursing.
Blindsided by the unfolding event and distressed, the Gheorghius solicit the help from their congregation in town and it becomes a huge international news. The media is framing it as child abuse versus oppression of religious freedom. Mild mannered Mihai becomes a posterboy for religious conservatism movement as the couple and the townsfolk get embroiled in the big custody battle court case.
Along with the title, snowy capped mountains surrounding the town and occasional avalanches stand as metaphor for the culture clash unfolding, Fjord is another tension filled, knotted social drama from Mungiu.
As usual, Mungiu presents characters navigating through our overly complicated current world, where any system is less than perfect and moral grey areas aplenty. He doesn't judge whether one system is worse than the other, he just expertly illuminates the differences, giving the sinewy human relations as much nuance as possible.
