Romanian filmmaker Mungiu\u2019s socially conscious drama, which won the Golden Palm, addresses far more than a mere \u201cwitch hunt\u201d or a dispute between Norway\u2019s child protection services and Christian Romanian migrants. Ideological and moral grey areas come to the fore in a small Norwegian town, where the local community begins to pass judgment on the immigrant couple, played by Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, and their family.<\/b><\/p>\n
A photo of smiling parents with their five children. This is the picture-perfect life Romanian Mihai and Norwegian Lisbet imagined for themselves in a snowy Norwegian village. After meeting in a Pentecostal church, they settled down to build a life together in the affluent Nordic country. But behind the locals\u2019 outward friendliness, Mihai and Lisbet soon begin to notice something quite different. Someone throws a stone and accuses the newcomers of having a negative influence on their children. As the imagined sense of community begins to fracture and Mihai and Lisbet\u2019s approach to parenting escalates into a national scandal, while, like the harsh glacier-carved landscape around them, their ideals gradually begin to crumble.<\/p>\n
Having worked as a journalist, Romanian filmmaker Mungiu, a two-time recipient of Cannes\u2019 highest honour, draws on documentary stories and social tensions in his directorial work. He did so in both the Romanian New Wave landmark 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days<\/i> (2007) and the drama Graduation <\/i>(2016), which was screened at RIGA IFF. Taking a bite into one of today\u2019s most contentious issues \u2013 radicalism, popularly framed as the \u201cculture wars\u201d \u2013 Mungiu deftly asks viewers to step down from their preconceived positions and leads them through bureaucracy, systemic problems, faith and ideological manipulation. Shedding didacticism, bias and any idealised view of human nature, the director places two of today\u2019s best-known actors \u2013 Romanian-American Stan and Norway\u2019s answer to Annie Hall, Reinsve \u2013 at one end of the horseshoe of political extremism, rendered in his hallmark style of stark naturalism. 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