There are parts of RMN (English title should read "MRI") that I found delightful and thoughtful. Unfortunately, these parts have been "photobombed" by plot twists that made little sense and, at best, muddled the narrative.
The good: the narrative in the movie is based on a true story, an event that is somewhat representative for how Europe struggles to come to terms with economic migration. The story could have been a masterful commentary on how the villagers rejected Sri Lankan workers in their factories, while at the same time going to work in western Europe themselves. To me, not exploiting the special position this small Eastern Europe village has in this dynamic was an unfortunate miss. I also loved the realistic depiction of an otherwise integrated village, with people switching casually between Hungarian, Romanian, and German - as well as conversant in French and English. The way the atmosphere in the village was captured was truly delightful and realistic, and I loved the movie for that. Although Cristian Mungiu claims proudly that he's not making an "American style movie" (i.e. Black and white, morally speaking) you'll find the expected personas that would power any movie contrasting globalization and preservation of a traditional way of life.
What spoiled the movie for me was the Neanderthal that the director pushed forward as the main (?) character; not to mention the bears, I'll come to the bears later. The character of Matthias is not representing either the traditional way of life nor is he representing the pains of globalization. He's just a brute sloshing around in the story. He's violent, uncaring... I ask myself: what would be missed if the character were cut out of the story, or if he were less antisocial?
The movie has many delightful themes: it is capturing a snapshot (or, MRI) of a society in flux; it is pondering the clash between the life in a quaint Transylvanian village and immigration / globalization. But that would have been too much of a "straight line" story for Mungiu apparently... So just to get us off balance, the director threw in a boy with a vision of a future suicide (...because the future is scary and maybe gruesome? I'm grasping at straws for meaning here...), and a finale comprised of group of bears standing around with thoughtful faces as if to say: "if you don't dig us, then you missed the whole point of the movie!"
The good: the narrative in the movie is based on a true story, an event that is somewhat representative for how Europe struggles to come to terms with economic migration. The story could have been a masterful commentary on how the villagers rejected Sri Lankan workers in their factories, while at the same time going to work in western Europe themselves. To me, not exploiting the special position this small Eastern Europe village has in this dynamic was an unfortunate miss. I also loved the realistic depiction of an otherwise integrated village, with people switching casually between Hungarian, Romanian, and German - as well as conversant in French and English. The way the atmosphere in the village was captured was truly delightful and realistic, and I loved the movie for that. Although Cristian Mungiu claims proudly that he's not making an "American style movie" (i.e. Black and white, morally speaking) you'll find the expected personas that would power any movie contrasting globalization and preservation of a traditional way of life.
What spoiled the movie for me was the Neanderthal that the director pushed forward as the main (?) character; not to mention the bears, I'll come to the bears later. The character of Matthias is not representing either the traditional way of life nor is he representing the pains of globalization. He's just a brute sloshing around in the story. He's violent, uncaring... I ask myself: what would be missed if the character were cut out of the story, or if he were less antisocial?
The movie has many delightful themes: it is capturing a snapshot (or, MRI) of a society in flux; it is pondering the clash between the life in a quaint Transylvanian village and immigration / globalization. But that would have been too much of a "straight line" story for Mungiu apparently... So just to get us off balance, the director threw in a boy with a vision of a future suicide (...because the future is scary and maybe gruesome? I'm grasping at straws for meaning here...), and a finale comprised of group of bears standing around with thoughtful faces as if to say: "if you don't dig us, then you missed the whole point of the movie!"