‘Fjord’ Is a Political Puzzle of Bureaucracy and Rage

The Gheorghiu family has moved to a small Norwegian town. Shortly after the Gheorghius settle into their new life, their children are taken from them by Barnevernet (Norway’s version of the Department of Children’s Services). Their crime? Spanking. Norwegian mother Lisbet (Renate Reinsve) attempts to navigate bureaucracy to get their children back, while Romanian father Mihai (Sebastian Stan) takes a more drastic approach, getting the Romanian government involved.​

Working off of the real-life 2015 case of the Bodnariu family, director Cristian Mungiu turns the controversy into a dramatized political case study. Though it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Fjord has been a difficult film for North American audiences, as the Gheorghius are a conservative Christian family and often seem to echo right-wing talking points we hear frequently in the U.S. But Mungiu is approaching his film as a Romanian, and his approach feels generally free of ideological bias. Instead, he highlights the totalitarianism of thought and forced assimilation Romanians face in Western and Northern Europe. The focus is not on whether the family’s beliefs are right or wrong, but on whether someone is allowed to hold dissenting beliefs. Spanking is a common form of discipline in Romania, though it is illegal in Norway. The issue is not with the law, but with the disproportionate response from Barnevernet — a response that arguably causes more trauma for the children than the spanking does.

What makes Fjord shine is the escalation on both sides of the issue — the systematic targeting built on structural bias and executed with self-declared enlightened thinking crashing into two desperate parents who are willing to do anything to get their children back. Mihai in particular transforms from a migrant taking a job he is grossly overqualified for to a highly divisive activist pulling on whatever strings he can to be reunited with his family, from evangelicals to the Romanian government. Each side becomes more radical in its mindset.​

In classic Mungiu fashion, there is no right answer to the moral arguments presented here. Instead, Fjord is a complex minefield of political puzzles: tolerance of dissenting opinions, cultural assimilation, government overreach, totalitarian echo chambers, and European hypocrisy and performative inclusion. Mungiu doesn’t hand his audience the answers. Fjord shows that government overreach isn’t as simple as a left-versus-right political dichotomy, and that any government, even those with the best intentions, can step over the line.