Skip to main content

Fjord, and the Challenging Frictions of Multiculturalism

Cultural assimilation for immigrants and newcomers is a loaded topic. There are those who believe that people coming to a new country should adopt some sense of that country’s broad mores and values in order to be a respectable, contributing member of society. Others contend that such people don’t owe a new country their assimilation, that they should hold onto their own traditions and sense of identity as a way of preserving their cultural roots. Some believe the correct position is somewhere in the middle of these, or that it depends on circumstances and a case-by-case basis. It is always a bit of a tricky issue to navigate.
But that didn’t stop director Christian Mungiu from diving into it wholeheartedly in his new movie Fjord, winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It is a severe and challenging movie. And all the more curious given it deals with a crisis involving cultural assimilation in a country like Norway, which prides itself on its openness and progressive values. But this is a movie that asks if there is a limit to an ideology of tolerance and if that is fair? And perhaps more directly where the line is in institutions upholding these things? The family at the centre of this movie would read to many as regressive and repressive in their practices. Is there a way to reconcile that with a philosophy of personal cultural freedom?
Mungiu didn’t invent the scenario he tackles here, rather he is adapting a real-life episode involving a mixed Romanian-Norwegian family in Norway. Here they are called the Gheorghius and have just moved to a Norwegian fjord town from Bucharest. Sebastian Stan plays the engineer patriarch Mihai with Renate Reinsve as his wife Lisbet, a nurse. The family of seven are evangelical Christians, socially quite conservative, and uphold fairly stern expectations in these regards around the household -the kids are forbidden from using the internet and dancing is considered a sin. Nevertheless, initially, they adapt to the town fairly well and get along fine with the locals, befriending their neighbours Mia (Lisa Carlehed), a lawyer, and Mats (Markus Tønseth), the local school principal -their daughter Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) also immediately takes to the Gheorghius’ eldest kids Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Emmanuel (Jonathan Ciprian Breazu). However, when Elia and Emmanuel come to school one day with visible bruises and make an offhand reference to having been hit, school authorities call Child Welfare Services, ultimately resulting (with Mihai’s admission to occasionally spanking them) in the children being removed from their parents’ custody for the duration of an investigation, which drags on and eventually spirals into a legal battle over apparent religious discrimination.
We are never shown an easy answer directly here. The cause of Elia’s bruises are never fully ascertained -they could indeed come from the parents (we do see Lisbet push Emmanuel rather harshly after a near accident that would have hurt the baby -later used as evidence in their hearing) or just some bit of rough-housing with her brother. The evidence the audience has is the same as CWS and Mungiu leaves it up to them to determine if the local authorities are making the right call or if the system’s bureaucracy itself is warranted. Compounding this of course is the response of Mihai and Lisbet, insistent of their innocence and of their discretion to raise their children in a manner they see fit, however contradictory it may be to the wider values of their community -values that Mats is a particular champion for. Mungiu centres much of the film in their perspective -indeed it is curious how framing is fairly evenly split in the early goings between the parents and the children, only for Elia and Emmanuel to disappear from much of the narrative once they are taken away. Certainly they would rather be with their family but their perspective of things is vastly underrepresented.
Still, the movie builds substantial sympathy towards Mihai and Lisbet, who understandably see themselves as victims of a system, and it is especially stark when Lisbet is forced to let go of her baby, whom she breastfeeds, so the arrangement is made to send her breast milk to the foster parent. You are even made to understand their case of discrimination at least to a mild degree -reference is made to an earlier call to CWS that resulted in no action based on their younger daughter making homophobic comments to a lesbian classmate. Bigoted though the comments are, was such a call the appropriate response? Mungiu puts his audience in the shoes of these parents as he asks them to consider this, and depending on one’s social, political persuasion, it can be an uncomfortable place to be.
The movie appears to give a lot of credence to this evangelical, conservative point-of-view. Though it should be noted that Mungiu is a director with seemingly modest progressive values -his previous Palme winner, the abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days would not have been well-received in the Gheorghiu’s circles, and his last movie R.M.N., to which this film is something of a thematic companion piece, is quite glaring in its critique of small town xenophobia and racism. Though it may look it on the surface, Fjord does not ascribe to a particular ideological stripe -what it showcases politically is the complexity of cultural integration and globalization. In some regards it is a little hollow and heavy-handed. The prosecuting attorney of the Gheorghius' trial extrapolates a little into irrelevance in invoking broad Romanian Christian aphorisms on homosexuality and corporal punishment, low-key putting assumed Romanian culture on trial. At the same time, Mihai's actions of both involving Romanian dignitaries and fostering an online right-wing movement of support and outrage only turbo-charges the tension around the situation. There is some aggression on each side as the conflict is entrenched further.
It’s a superbly subtle performance from Stan, acting perhaps for the first time in his native accent and at times language. The beard and shaved head further obscure him behind the character. His now two-time co-star Reinsve is as usual quite strong as well, delivering with particular authenticity the gradual shock and emotional devastation of losing her children. Mungiu’s direction is stark, albeit less so than his earlier movies -the setting at least provides for an interesting visual climate, the high fjords dwarfing the village, the mountains surrounding it occasionally prone to avalanches. There is a volatility to the space almost reflective of the tenor of the narrative. Perhaps that is the source of the movie’s title.
At the heart of everything though are the children, whose welfare both the parents and CWS claim their actions are in service of. Yet it strikes me as very intentional how little Mungiu allows us to see of them, how their interior lives with their family are almost never glimpsed on their own through a lens outside of a neighbour. The minor with the most screen-time is Noora, whose interest in helping the Gheorghiu kids (and Elia in particular) is very pronounced, at one point plotting even to smuggle them away to her birth mother’s cabin if it is ruled they must stay in foster care. A lot of subtext passes between them, clarified exponentially towards the close of the movie in an indication that perhaps amidst all the drama the Gheorghius, though not necessarily guilty of what they are accused, do not have the children’s best interests at heart.
Threading the needle on upholding multicultural values in pursuit of a truly multicultural society is a difficult thing. And Mungiu doesn’t come to any conclusions with Fjord. He doesn’t offer answers, he doesn’t find a solution to the extreme polarization of our times. His canvas being a European, international one makes the subject more interesting and complicated than if it had been entirely domestic to one nation and differences of religion and politics in one culture. Personal choice is certainly a factor in how the Gheorghius live, what they believe, and how they raise their children -but it is also informed by so much other context, particularly coming from Mihai’s side. And the objections from the Norwegians are just as baked-in and multifaceted. It is an interesting movie, and a challenging one, even if it leaves a lot on its plate. It is a good approximation of the turbulent state of cultural, political, religious cohesion in a modern and connected liberal society. If it is capable of doing any good remains to be seen.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
1 comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
15 comments
Read more

A Stylish and Charmingly Reinvented David Copperfield

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)  is the most important book Charles Dickens ever wrote. It is not the most famous or influential by any means (that would of course be A Christmas Carol ), but it is the book that is the purest expression of the authors’ style, identity, and worldview. It is his most personal work, semi-autobiographical in its story of the chronology from infancy to adulthood of a character who overcomes great loss and hardships to find a fulfilling life as a writer. To read David Copperfield  is to understand Dickens himself. Armando Iannucci knew this when he decided to make a new adaptation of the novel for a twenty-first century audience. He also knew that Dickens adaptations are ubiquitous at this point. Films are a bit rarer, but every few years a new television adaptation rears its head to keep the authors’ unique world an...
Post a Comment
Read more