R.M.N.

Powerful director, Cristian Mungiu (winner of the Palme d'Or in 2007 for 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days) shows, in a succession of still shots, the rise of fear, the upsurge of xenophobia, resentment against Europe, the ravages of globalisation and the damage of a male chauvinist education. The scope of his dark, sensory film, with its realism punctuated by dreamlike imagery (dogs bark, bears prowl, horses suggest the invasion of the Huns, and in the forest a boy sees ‘something’ that scares the life out of him), goes beyond the microcosm of Romania, because these primitive impulses, these community tensions, this uncontrollable paranoia, we could well experience them too. (...) Unwilling to simplify, Mungiu raises ethical questions but does not judge. It is up to the spectator to make up their own mind. Not least through a seventeen-minute cadenza, a general assembly of villagers in the village hall, filmed in a two-camera sequence shot and from Csilla’s point of view, in which the cacophony of stereotypes explodes, the drums of identity-based madness, but also the small music of the class struggle. Is there a hint of optimism in this world ruled by terror, white-hot from its own history and bewildered by the passivity of institutions (the church, the town council)? Yes, Matthias wants his son to know how to fight, to show no mercy: ‘If you show mercy, you die first, and I want you to die last!’ Later, the child lets a trapped animal go. It is as if Mungiu has put all his trust in the next generation. (Sophie Grassin; Le Nouvel Obs)