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| Writer/director Cristian Mungiu |
R.M.N. B aka: Rezonanță Magnetică Nucleară Romania France Belgium Sweden (125) 2022 ‘Scope d: Cristian Mungiu
An overly dismal and grim film about racism and xenophobic hatred, which refuses to listen to reason and instead spreads its own toxic contamination wherever it appears, grounded in fearmongering, disguised as some kind of moral cleansing, but it’s a suffocating poison that is hard to eradicate, with Mungiu basing his film upon real events, the 2020 Ditrău xenophobic incident. Nonetheless, while challenging the country’s post-dictatorship legacy, this comes across as heavy handed, taking shots at the West and the imposed regulations of the EU, in many ways resembling the lynch mob mentality of the Fritz Lang pre-war epic Fury (1936), but also Stuart Heisler’s Among the Living (1941) and William Wellman’s The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), films dealing with the murderous effects of lawlessness from a lynch mob mentality, where vigilante justice replaces any existing democracy, where ideals of justice are turned on its head. Romania had a long history of bigotry against Gypsies, “whom we finally expelled,” completely driven out of the region, which the residents proudly report again and again, yet this film gets under the surface, with sinister implications, exploring the primal forces of animalism that exist in Eastern European countries, as animals have always had a place in Slavic imaginations, used either symbolically or in reality to better understand humans and the worlds they create, like the horses in Tarkovsky’s ANDREI RUBLEV (1966) and the wolves in František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová (1967), which traces back to Medieval paganist roots, or more recently the deer in Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl) (2017), exploring the inner recesses of the subconscious realms. In one evocative scene in this film there’s a holiday parade with men wearing bear costumes. Only his fifth feature in twenty years, Mungiu sets this film in the heavily forested region of Transylvania, where hunting is synonymous with the predatory nature of man, viewed as a way of demonstrating control over the surrounding natural world, while also taming the wildness within, which is a way of historically existing in harmony. But something upsets that natural order, where unleashed strands of xenophobic hatred turns man against man in an epic struggle between rational choices and animalistic instincts, as outside forces are viewed as inhuman, like an insidiuous infestation of rot and disease, believing it will upset the nationalistic “purity” of the region, where the objections always begin with “I have nothing against them, but…”, eventually leading to death threats. In expressing the quickly spreading public outrage, the raucous town meeting at the end recalls Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc) (2021), which succinctly summarizes the culture wars that are currently being fought in a number of Eastern European countries, with the urban elites defending all the achievements of liberal democracies since the 1990’s, yet there is also a regressive wing that prefers a heavier hand of authority, like Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian nationalism, opening the door for the more rigidly dogmatic politics from the communist era. Romania is experiencing a far-right resurgence, but so is Poland, Italy, and France, allowing a regression into deep-seeded bigotry, Romanian village embroiled in racism scandal over Sri Lankan bakery workers YouTube (4:22). While everyone should be proud of where they come from, this film presents its own unique challenges, with Mungiu viewed as radically innovative abroad, yet in Romania his views blend into the mainstream (Cristian Mungiu Talks R.M.N [Interview]). Dark and deeply disturbing, shot in ‘Scope by cameraman Tudor Vladimir Panduru, this film initially screened in competition at Cannes in 2022, six years since his last film Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2016) won the Best Direction Prize, with Mungiu smacking us in the face with an overly pessimistic yet inevitable reality that is sweeping through Europe at the moment, fueled by extremist social media postings that specialize in fabrication and conspiracy theories, driving democracies to the brink of instability, where it can be hard to watch, but unfortunately it rings true.
The title stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in Romanian, as if examining an internally growing, potentially life-threatening medical condition, with the director scanning the complexity of our current social structures. Initially, an untold sign comes from the trauma of a child, Rudi (Mark Blenyesi), who sees something in the forest (which is never shown) and becomes petrified, refusing to speak afterwards, with his mother Ana (Macrina Bârlădeanu) offering reassuring comfort, while his burly, overbearing father Matthias (Marin Grigore) shows little sympathy, wanting to instill his own patriarchal values, demanding that he be strong and face his fears, telling him to fight and never feel pity, viewing it entirely through an entrenched masculinity where any perceived weakness is paramount to cowardice. Matthias and his family come from the German minority in the region, initially seen working abroad at a slaughterhouse in Germany, but he gets into an altercation after receiving a bigoted insult and is forced to return home, where his wife is not happy to see him, fearful of the way he bullies their son, quickly seen visiting his recently divorced former mistress, Csilla (Judith State), the Hungarian manager of a local industrial bakery, hoping to rekindle a new affair, but she’s been pursuing higher ambitions since her promotion, often seen alone drinking wine and playing the cello, while also stylishly renovating her parents’ house. Despite the remoteness of the region, the village is populated by various ethnic groups where rampant poverty has forced them to seek work abroad, unwilling to accept the minimal wages offered locally. As a result, the owner of the factory, Mrs. Dénes (Orsolya Moldován), is forced to recruit foreign workers from EU funds that will allow her to expand her factory, in this case hiring workers from Sri Lanka after weeks of no one else locally applying for the job. Added to this mix is a French emissary, Ben (Victor Benderra), a member of an NGO whose mission is to count the bears in the region, part of the ecological preservation movement that shut down the nearby mine due to hazardous concerns, taking with it many local jobs, a contributing factor in so many seeking jobs elsewhere. He’s immediately schooled by the local view that the West has historically all but ignored the East, believing there’s never been any sense of shared reciprocity, using a veritable mishmash of languages in their everyday lives, where the initial festival screenings were distinguished by different subtitle colors (missing in the U.S. version), Cristian Mungiu's R.M.N. new clip official from Cannes Film Festival 2022 - 1/3 YouTube (1:44). The wild landscape of the Carpathian mountains comes into play, shot mostly in winter, much of it during Christmas, where the population is always subjected to wolves or bears in the dense forest that could attack at any time, with sheep continually disappearing from the stables, mirroring the fears emanating from the village inhabitants. Residents have a hard time realizing that while the mountainous landscape has remained the same for thousands of years, the circumstances have changed, as globalization hangs over the community. The film is mostly seen through the eyes of Matthias, whose outdated and uneducated masculine views reflect the village mentality, still harboring resentments against Gypsies, where the underlying hatred is still simmering. While the Sri Lankans have done nothing to stir up trouble, and by all indications are generous and hard working, their hiring sets off a firestorm of resentments, much of it coming in an outpouring of racial animosity expressed during a church service, where the local priest (József Bíró) acts as their intermediary, taking those complaints to Mrs. Dénes, who views them as little more than ugly rumors that have no basis in fact, ignoring his plea to get rid of them. What follows is a stunning escalation, as Csilla’s home is firebombed by hooded vigilantes, a terrorist act that resembles a KKK attack from the 60’s in the American South, with Matthias later implicated as one of the attackers, adding a chilling undertone of sinister intimidation to his existing relationship with Csilla.
Since his first internationally acclaimed film, the Palme d’Or winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007), Mungiu has always shot his films in sequence, drawing inspiration directly from reality, where one of the most important ingredients is time, its continuum, where there is no editing. It was then Mungiu decided to make films that were as close to reality as possible, extremely wary that cinema can be a very manipulative art, deciding early on that the director must make choices that empower the viewers, allowing them to make their own judgments. In this way, Mungiu counters the American model where the audience always has to understand, or identify with the main character. For this reason, he turns the central protagonist of Matthias into an unsympathetic and brutal character, balancing this with an unforgiving forest being so close to the houses, mirroring the subconscious, where you have to be careful where you walk at night, as unseen dangers lurk everywhere. There is a conflict between individuality and community, where sometimes you lose your individuality by becoming part of the runaway freight train of the crowd, as people often lose their moral compass to conform to convention, arguably a safer route, but one fraught with inherent dangers. Mungiu already made a film about the role religious institutions play in abandoning society’s core values, Beyond the Hills (După dealuri) (2012), becoming more ritualistic than humanistic. That same thing happens here, as an initial spark inside the walls of a church incites a wildfire of fear and xenophobic hatred that literally takes over the town, fueled by violent death threats from disparaging social media postings, where their instincts are to be suspicious of those who don’t look like them, upsetting the fragile balance between various ethnic groups, turning into a 17-minute communal shockwave of agitated chaos, hate slogans, and Fascist-spewing bigotry, with people angrily blaming foreigners for all the sins in the world, including poverty, unemployment, health epidemics, terrorism, and the effects of globalization. Denouncing the liberal bastions of the West and the EU as examples of being out of touch with their neck of the woods, revealing how the absurdities of the European subsidy system can tear small villages apart, this one-shot sequence also reproduces a compilation of the stereotypes and lies reflecting the many nationalist arguments heard all throughout Europe, where a common refrain is “we have nothing against them as long as they stay where they belong.” In terms of stirring up hysteria, it resembles the torch-wielding mob taking off after the monster in James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN (1931), Frankenstein (7/8) Movie CLIP - The Torch-Wielding Mob ... YouTube (3:00), blamed for every offense imaginable, except, of course, their own crimes. Somewhere near the end, the narrative of the central protagonist shifts from the more closed-minded Matthias to the more liberal Csilla, who denounces the bigotry, with music playing an important part of her life, frequently seen playing the theme music of Wong Kar-wai’s In The Mood For Love - Yumeji's Theme [4K] YouTube (6:10), striking a balance between humanity and affection, where this stark contrast is meant to portray the struggle we all face to find our own inner conscious. Csilla embraces the foreign workers, and develops personal relationships with each one of them, knowing the value they bring to their isolated community. Though she is agnostic, she embraces the spirit and humanistic side of religion that the church and its parishioners have abandoned. The fact that the two younger educated women, Csilla and Mrs. Dénes, are the most open and clear-sighted, and also the warmest characters, is not accidental, but realistic. While the layers of extreme dehumanization can feel one note, never delving into the psychological interiors, yet continually hammering home the same irrational impulses, Mungiu’s films all have a common theme that suppressing the rights of others is a pathological product of historically ingrained masculine ideology, leading to an ambiguous finale that suggests we’re at the threshold of a moral crisis and a possible return to primitivism, even breaking away momentarily from the director’s penchant for naturalism.
Cristian Mungiu’s Closet Picks YouTube (5:46)
