Review: R.M.N.

Director:  Cristian Mungiu

Stars:  Judith State, Marin Grigore, Macrina Bârlădeanu

R.M.N., at last. Nearly a year and a half after its debut at Cannes, Cristian Mungiu’s thorny treaty on encroaching nationalism in Romania makes its way into UK cinemas. It has been worth the wait.

Ducking German authorities after headbutting a rude coworker through a pane of glass, bullish Matthias (Marin Grigore) returns to the Romanian region of Transylvania a few days before Christmas 2019 to a community poised for unrest. While his eight-year-old son Rudi (Mark Edward Blenyesi) frustrates him for a seemingly irrational fear of the forest surrounding the town – and his wife Ana (Macrina Bârlădeanu) simply frustrates him – his sometime-mistress Csilla (Judith State) is brewing controversy by bringing in foreign workers to take minimum wage jobs at the town’s bakery; the principal source of employment in the area.

What unfurls in Mungiu’s epic occurs on two fronts. The micro (the familial, the personal) and the macro (a rather theatrical rendering of bigotry and mob mentality indicative of a rise in racism and ethnocentrism coursing through much of Europe today). As one might well expect, Mungiu plays it all with gripping, steadfast seriousness, and it shares a certain austerity with the likes of Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon; another sermonising art-house darling that cleaved to grave allegory and the bite of winter.

Sweepingly presented in widescreen, Mungiu certainly gives us a feel for the area, the livelihoods, the lived-in seclusion of the community amid the vast rolling hills. Several scenes recall Bruegel’s masterpiece “The Hunters in the Snow” and, duly, we eye the passing of a shotgun between characters here wondering/dreading the moment it becomes pertinent to the story. A persistent Chekhovian threat.

To the modern audience Matthias can be a tough protagonist to get behind. He’s a relatively simple and stubborn man, rooted in traditional patriarchal values that have been passed down to him. Yet he has admirable qualities. Certainly his rugged practicality and survival instincts. The film frequently takes the time to remind us that evolutions in tolerance and understanding are perceived as liberal Western qualities and that the residents in Transylvania don’t subscribe to that identity.

Indeed, Mungiu depicts a fierce contradiction within them. A mix of Romanians and Hungarians who openly, pridefully talk of disparate heritages that sprawl out across Europe, they have simultaneously turned the town in their own fortress of nationalism. That they and their family members are free to search for work across the globe plainly highlights a common hypocrisy.

Csilla differs from the majority in her acceptance of other cultures. What starts out as a practical solution to a business problem soon becomes a cause. She stands almost single-handed against the increasing agitation of the town; separated from them by her relatively raised social class (an early cut to her practising the cello seems designed to spotlight this). This class tension furthers the schism that manifests. At a stunningly staged town meeting in the film’s second half, Csilla and her boss are ostracised for their prosperity and the business strategies of the bakery are called into question. The attacks on their capitalist commerce are not unfounded, only adding to the thorniness of Mungiu’s social drama. While its easy to object to the crowd’s braying racism, a solution to the wider problem is harder to pinpoint without deconstructing an entire system. The townsfolk, while despicably hostile, appear to have fallen into a trap.

Revelations about Rudi’s encounter in the forest at first seem on point with the unfolding essay, however a third act event changes the nature of this strand considerably. Having already entwined religion with hypocrisy, Mungiu adds a subtle element of the quasi-religious fantastic into the mix, allowing the film its eventual descent into what feels like allegorical apocalyptic folk horror.

While one might accurately describe the unfolding events as a slow burn, nothing about the pace of R.M.N. feels dawdling. This is because there are so many angles and avenues to cover, a diverse range of characters crisscrossing through the narrative and so much meat for Mungiu to proffer us to chew through. An admirable cinematic dexterity is displayed. Much as we hold on remarkable still frames – like the aforementioned town hall scene – we’re as often left peering into benevolent tracking shots (especially as things darken for a finale reminiscent – if not formally – of Von Trier’s Dogville).

Matthias is our way into and out of this labyrinthine, (overly?) ambitious treaty on Romania’s precarious present. His aggressive masculinity bookends the picture, curiously suggestive that his brand of burly practicality might provide some kind of solution. Ultimately, however, this suggestion is thwarted and confounded. He may be the muscle, but Csilla remains the picture’s heart.

This is angry and compelling cinema that transposes some of the grandiose and cynical philosophies of Cormac McCarthy to a crisp Eastern European milieu. An Eastern Western, if you will. Grounded in naturalistic performance and as unforgiving as the brittle branches of a winter forest, I could’ve watched this unfurl for a further two hours.