Animali selvatici

The director as usual deals with gray areas of morality. No one is all good or bad. All characters - with all their qualities and vices - are simply put, human.

He is able to treat topics such as immigration, racism, east-west, identity politics, etc. Without falling into the trap of being judgmental or prescriptive. No slogans here. All issues depicted naturally through the normal flow of normal people's lives...

The single take in the town hall - which goes on for minutes - must be a milestone in film history! I cannot imagine how many takes he must have had to create this virtually impossible scene. In a single take, so many characters engaging in the liveliest dialogue for minutes...it was breathtaking.

R. M. N. Was 2 hours of a visual and dramatic feast. I cannot wait to see what this great director will produce for us next.

Greetings again from the darkness. Welcome to 'Hypocriteville". Or the town of Bigotry. Or Xenophobia City. Regardless how vile each of these labels might be, they each fit in the Transylvania community at the heart of writer-director Christian Mungiu's latest film. Of course, as with most derogatory labels, the accused would never admit the shoe fits, and paraphrasing Shakespeare, would likely protest too much. Mungiu's brilliant 2007 Palme d'Or winner 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS was inexplicably not nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, and he proves again his unique mastery of the medium.

Our introduction to Matthias (Marin Grigore) occurs as he violently head butts his rude supervisor after being disrespected. Matthisas then returns to his home community where he encounters Ana (Macrina Barladeanu), the mother of his young son. Rudi (Mark Edward Blenyesi) is 8 years old, and he has recently witnessed something in the forest that has frightened him into silence. Ana does what she can to comfort him, while Matthias pushes him to 'man up' and face his fears. Matthias also re-connects with his former lover, Csilla (Judith State), who is the manager of the local bakery in town.

Csilla is working diligently to hire more employees at the bakery in order to qualify for grant money. The problem is that no locals want to work for minimum wage. Instead, many locals head to Germany and other areas for higher paying jobs, and the conflict arises when Csilla hires a couple of men from Sri Lanka. It's at this point where this mishmash of citizens begins their racist rants ... this despite being a mixed community where many friends and family member have headed out to find jobs in other areas. "Not in my backyard" is a phrase used so often in communities fighting against some cause, and that's exactly what's happened here.

Mungiu's excellent film peaks with a 15 minute (or more) single take scene - a town hall meeting where a couple of dozen citizens speak out showing their small-mindedness. It's painful to watch, yet also mesmerizing. Csilla and Matthias are front and center for the scene and both are superb, especially Csilla's facial reactions and Matthias' cowering (this after flaunting his powerful masculinity for so much of the film). By the time this scene concludes, this viewer was mentally exhausted while also being in awe. It's this reaction which makes that final scene so confounding and seemingly out of place. Mungiu taps into the human behavior that we so often question these days, and he does so in a way that never preaches or judges. It's truly exceptional filmmaking ... except that final scene.

Opens April 28, 2023.

It's been half a decade since Cristian Mungiu's previous film, the excellent Bacalaureat/Graduation, and there's a bit of its thematic DNA in his most recent work. The movie goes beyond that though by exploring a real event which left its mark on Romanian society a few years ago, an event littered with prejudice and xenophobia. R. M. N. Is a bit messy and concludes in an unsatisfying fashion, but rewards the viewer with a layered experience.

From the get-go, there's a coldness to R. M. N. (Romanian abbreviation for Magnetic Resonance Imaging) that you can't shake - it's visual, it's seasonal and it's in the lead character, a monosyllabic bear of a man named Matthias. After an incident occurs while working abroad, he returns home, where more coldness awaits him, as he's met by a distant wife, an emotionally stifled child and a circumspect lover. His home village, set between mountains and forests, stands out by being multiethnic - predominantly Hungarians and Romanians, but also some Germans, like Matthias. The interaction between Mungiu's characters is fascinating to watch, as they transition seamlessly between languages, portraying a well-knit, burgeoning community. It is only after a couple of Sri-Lankan workers arrive to work at the local bakery that the the xenophobe's nest starts stirring.

The movie has a strong build-up, creating a tense atmosphere while setting all its pieces in place. Its characters are faced with more agency than one usual sees, working the underlying beliefs and attitudes onto the screen. And when things turn, they turn quickly and viscously, yet almost unexpectedly - feeding on a sense of unexpressed resentfulness, a feeling primed by our lead's emotional literacy. Similarly to another recent Romanian movie themed around prejudices, Radu Jude's Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, R. M. N. Climaxes at a town meeting, where all the paper-thin-arguments you're friendly Facebook neighbour would have shared are laid bare.

To me, this is where the movie wavers. Even as Mungiu tries to maintain a less than judgmental distance from its subjects, there's something so banal and un-cinematic about this kind of stand-off, that it simply cannot carry the burden imposed by the narrative arc. The scene works in spite of this, it works because of the little details and the (un)expected escalation, but it's not a worthy pay-off to what preceded it. And the conclusion that follows it even less so, being close to the absurd in spite of striving for symbolism.

Still, R. M. N. Shouldn't leave you unimpressed. It tackles big themes with passionate interest and concern, which makes up for any shortcomings, thereby proving a worthy addition to Mungiu's impressive catalogue of films.

RMN is the Romanian translation of "MRI" - the medical machine which takes deep images of the human body including the brain. In a way, renowned Director Cristian Mungiu (4 MONTHS, GRADUATION) is examining the inner souls of his fellow countryman. An X-Ray if you will.

Mungiu's screenplay is set in a small Transylvanian village. Mattias (Marin Grigore), a brute of a man, has returned from a job for hire in Germany to reunite with his estranged wife Ana (Macrina Barladeanu) and young son Rudi (Mark E. Blenyesi) who claims to have seen something so horrible that he can barely speak. Csilla (Judith Slate) manages a local bakery and is also Mattias' old flame. There are obvious tensions, but the town is seemingly idyllic with its snow-capped mountains, abundant livestock and quiet lifestyles.

The outward peace begins to crack when Csilla's bakery is forced to hire three migrants from Sri Lanka to keep operating. The locals have balked at working for minimum wage, but, before long they aim their ire at the black workers who they equate with invading gypsies. Soon the entire populace is riled by their presence, this despite the village's own checkered history with immigration, not to mention so many of they themselves going overseas for work - doubly so now that Romania has joined the E. U..

Mungiu's intentions are clear, but, he doesn't take a direct route. His concerns are more with exploring the inner psychological forces of the villagers' behavior more than their direct actions. The key sequence is a fifteen minute long single take which places Mattias and Csilla as the focus of the frame, while the townspeople rail on airing predictable grievances.

Mungiu's method includes a pair of visual metaphors and a premonition of sorts. The script doesn't all work and the strain of drawing it all together as a whole shows at times. Still, R. M. N. Is a reminder of how universal prejudice and the various incarnations of injustice can be. The acting by Slate and Grigore in particular is quite strong and Mungiu's rigorous intelligence make a definite impact. There are a pair of arresting images towards the end that are hauntingly effective.

It's doubtful that anyone who's not Romanian -- and possibly Hungarian? -- will understand the title of this movie without looking it up on the Internet, as I did. And even after you do, you still might not completely understand why Cristian Mungiu decided to name it that. R. M. N. Is essentially the Romanian version of M. R. I, and while a brain scan makes a literal appearance in the film, it's done on a minor character, and what in the world does that have to do with everything else going on anyway?

But Mungiu has said that the idea of a brain scan, of peering underneath what's visible to see the inner workings of the mind, is a suitable metaphor what this film does to its characters. The movie is full of people who have thoughts and opinions and prejudices roiling underneath the exteriors they choose to present to the world, and it only takes the right combination of circumstances for all of those thoughts and feelings to ignite into a conflagration.

The major set piece of "R. M. N" is a town meeting done in one static long take. Here, the townspeople, presided over by their mayor, debate whether or not to let three Sri Lankan workers stay in the town and work at the local bakery. Xenophobia rears its ugly head, and civil discourse doesn't have a chance. Even though folks arguing on both sides of the argument make valid points, no one is interested in hearing anything anyone else is saying. Fear and irrationality reign supreme.

That same fear and irrationality bleeds into the film's enigmatic and deeply unsettling ending. You could spend a couple of hours with other people who've seen the movie debating what it all means, and still not be confident that you know. But it's effective as hell.

I'm sitting here thinking about this movie the day after I saw it, and I can't get it out of my mind.

Grade: A.