Cannes 2026: with Fjord, Cristian Mungiu breaks the ice (review)

The Romanian, already winner of a Palme d’Or for 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, has relocated to Norway and signs a relentless drama with assumed moral ambiguity. A serious candidate for precious laurels.

Sometimes a territory on a human scale, a few meters, is enough to tell the story of the world. In Suddenly by Ryuzuke Hamaguchi a Parisian nursing home becomes the utopian place supposed to re-enchant our Western societies steeped in individualism. Andreï Zvyagintsev follows in his Minotaur the disintegration of a bourgeois family in a Russian provincial town, symbol of the tensions of a country which sends its flock to the Ukrainian front. At Cristian Mungiu, a Norwegian fjord through a play of scale questions the contradictions of our time. An increasingly divided era where you have to be for or against and if possible position yourself quickly (Cannes allegory!)

In a fjord, a family – the Gheorghiu – arrives from Romania with their suitcases and their evangelist principles. The rather progressive local society welcomes with a touch of skepticism this couple (Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve) who raise their toddler in the love of God. Integration still takes place and a neighbor, a rebellious teenager, is quick to sympathize with the new arrivals. Mungiu gradually spreads his canvas. Its ultra-precise staging firstly offers the illusion of free movement of bodies in space. This is obviously an illusion. The position of the camera constantly dictates its law and influences the very thought of the film.

So when the two representatives of Children’s Aid go with their rigid humanism to the Gheorghiu home, a connection is enough to accentuate a point of view and understand the tension differently. If Children’s Aid is there, it’s because a little earlier, the eldest in the family arrived at school with bruises on her body and seems to have accused her mother. The machine is racing. Toddlers, including a newborn, are almost immediately placed in foster families while things become clearer.

Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve enjoy their return to Mungiu

A bit like the Farhadi ofA Separationwe will have to mentally replay the film of a sequence to validate our position as an eyewitness. Meanwhile, a trial takes place. A priori good vs. the supposed bad guys. Except, not really. You have to know how to agree on words, your conception of education, your place in society… Mungiu, with a certain cunning, enjoys putting his audience (only progressives with Croisette inserts) on the defensive. He manipulates consciences by pretending not to touch them.

A certain mysticism emerges: a paralyzed man stands up, a young girl walks on water… Madame Gheorghiu has all the makings of a Saint (the Norwegian Renate Reinsve, formidable!), Monsieur (the American-Romanian Sebastian Stan, all in contained tension) carries his burden without flinching too much. This Fjord surrounded by sluggish waters, will end with a cry of love leaving the spectator with his doubts, his anger (We heard some shouting at the anti-woke pamphlet..), his principles but in no case his certainties. It is the latter that Mungiu precisely denounces. We only want to land on this piece of ice again to rethink what we think we saw.

Romania-Norway-France. By Cristian Mungiu. With: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve… Duration: 2h26. Released August 19.