A powerful movie about parents whose disciplines and teachings are viewed differently in another country.
Sebastian Stan is known to a lot of young movie goers as Bucky Barnes, A.K.A. The Winter Soldier. But a majority of them should also know that he’s proven to be more than just that with movies like “I, Tonya,” “A Different Man,” “The Apprentice,” and “The Martian.” And in “Fjord,” his first collaboration with “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, he embraces his Romanian Roots. He speaks fluently in both languages, and here, it’s like seeing a completely different side to the actor.
Being a Mungiu movie, “Fjord” tackles turmoil in its own Romanian blood. It’s not graphic like “432,” but it is just as passionate about its characters and their circumstances as that gem. It regards the legal system, religious beliefs, and different views of parenting. And the movie takes its time to acknowledge what system works and what doesn’t, and what distinguishes good parenting from bad parenting. There’s a lot to digest here, and therefore, “Fjord” is a complex drama.
Stan is nearly unrecognizable with a balding head, beard, and glasses as Mihai Ghoeorghiu, a Romanian father of five who relocated to his wife Lisbet’s (Renate Reinsve) home country of Norway for work. This is a conservative family, who live under strict rules and teachings. If the kids do something wrong like fighting in the kitchen and nearly getting their baby brother injured, then they’re punished by not being allowed to attend their new friend Noora’s (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) birthday party. When that girl comments on that, he says things like: “I forgive them, but they still need to learn a lesson” and “They’ll be happy when they’re adults.”
The kids he’s punishing are the eldest daughter Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and the eldest son Emmanuel (Jonathan Ciprian Breazu), who both spend time with Noora at night. She’s the kind who would take them joyriding on her family’s boat. Even injuring herself like a reckless idiot to try to convince them to go on a joyride with her. And the next morning, Elia appears with bruises, which has the teachers thinking she and her brother are being abused.
I’m told “Fjord” is inspired by a true story of the Bodnariu, whose children were taken by the authorities. The same problem applies to the Ghoeorghius, as all the children, including the baby, are taken by social services as part of the investigation regarding whether or not Mihai and Lisbet are abusive parents. They do admit that they slap their kids on the butt, but not too hard. They’re from Romania, but things are different in Norway. And this is when the parents turn to Noora’s lawyer mother Mia Halberg (Lisa Carlehed) for help.
It’s not just the Ghoeorghiu the film focuses on, but we also get aspects from Halberg, especially the patriarch school principal Mats (Markus Tønseth). His ailing father Åke (Øyvind Venstad Kjeksrud) is in a wheelchair following a stroke, and there are talks of putting him in a retirement home, while at one point, he thinks that the Ghoeorghiu kids and they religious beliefs have been a bad influence of his daughter. And not even he believes that she was already a bad influence from the start.
Stan and Reinsve are both exceptional in the ways they use their own backgrounds to represent their characters from different worlds in the same place. And names we probably haven’t heard of yet, but are equally great include Lund-Olsen and Carlehed. They’re all guided with the right intensity by Mungiu, and he, once again, paints the picture with structure and humanity. Granted, the film doesn’t give us all the complete character studies, but it does tell a story that questions tolerance in a society and what faiths work and what doesn’t. It’s always a complicated issue that goes on in different societies and sometimes the same society.
I’m glad Mungiu took home many prizes from the Cannes Film Festival for “Fjord,” including the Palme d’Or and the Francois Chalais Prize. It knows what families are represented, and it knows the stakes they’re in, whether we’re talking about legal dramas or family dramas. It serves as both.
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