Fjord
Get ready, because starting August 19 I'm going to harass every single one of you until you go see this in theaters.
After the screening, I asked Mungiu something along the lines of: "Why did you feel the need to talk about the absurdity and coldness of bureaucracy?"
His answer surprised me. He said that this was simply my perspective, and that Norway itself would not see it that way. Watching this film, and more importantly allowing it to genuinely challenge your thinking, requires a conscious willingness to question absolutely everything. If you only pay attention to what confirms what you already believe, you've missed the point. Fjord confronts you with the extent to which our societies have become trapped in binary ways of thinking.
As Mungiu himself put it, if we stop talking to one another, we shouldn't be surprised by the way people end up voting. The film captures the process by which we construct an idea of "the other" without ever truly knowing them. Without dialogue or self-questioning, we all end up carrying fictional versions of other people in our heads, eventually turning them into enemies.
Of course, that's only my interpretation. The most interesting part is hearing what the film brings out in everyone else because, surprise, surprise, depending on your experiences and worldview, it won't affect you in the same way.
I also loved how someone in the audience described Mungiu's filmmaking: "It's incredible how you manage to terrify without ever having to show a single severed head."
And finally, watching a Romanian film in a French cinema, with A-list actors speaking Romanian, gave me goosebumps. Shoutout to the Cinéma du Panthéon and the Avant-premières Festival. I have to admit, I was pretty proud.