It’s one of the first shocks of this 75th Cannes Film Festival and a solid candidate for the Palme d’Or – or at least the prize for directing. Immersed in a village community in Romania that sinks into ordinary xenophobia, “RMN” confirms the great talent of its director, Cristian Mungiu. We interviewed him.
He is the leader of the Romanian New Wave which has swept over auteur cinema and festivals around the world since the early 2000s. Cristian Mungiu is a regular at the Cannes Film Festival. He won the Palme d’Or for “4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days”, the Screenplay Prize for “Beyond the Hills” and the Directing Prize for “Baccalauréat”. Plunged into a village community in Romania which is sinking into ordinary xenophobia, “RMN” (a title that can be translated by scanner) is one of the first shocks of this 75th Cannes Film Festival. “I was inspired by a news item that made headlines in Romania, two years before the pandemic. The government even had to intervene”, explained the director, met the day following the official screening.
“This news item touches on the universal. Even if it is located in a small place, somewhere, in Romania, the topics which it touches can concern spectators of the whole world”. “It also had thriller elements, a genre that allows me to get the viewer interested in my stories before getting into more complex stuff. It allowed me to talk regarding Europe, regarding our relationship with each other”. “I didn’t have a rational idea of mixing cinematic genres before writing the screenplay. I always want to make realistic films while respecting reality. There is always a rational explanation for what is happening on screen, but the characters don’t necessarily have the same, good point of view on the situation. It’s a film regarding fear, anxiety. It’s always more intense if you don’t have the concrete object of your fear.
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There is a common ground in every human being
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And Cristian Mungiu to show in “RMN” how xenophobia plagues a community and establishes a “ranking” between the French, well accepted because white and rich, the Sri Lankans badly considered especially when there are several of them, up to the gypsies already expelled by the Romanian and Hungarian communities that coexist in Transylvania. “Our fear of the other is part of human nature and we need to invest massively in education. Sometimes poverty shows in that. When we lack education, openness to others, we use stigmatizing stereotypes. You cannot transpose a theoretical model and believe that it will be enough”. For Cristian Mungiu, there are all the same universal languages: “music, culture, the things that we create. There are universal habits and if you take time to communicate with the other, you will realize that you are not so different from him. The patience to communicate and discover the other is essential. There is a common ground in every human being.
In “RMN”, we follow Matthias, back in his native village, in Transylvania. A village troubled by the arrival of foreign workers hired in the factory of Csilla, his ex-girlfriend. An anti-hero who suffers events more than he provokes them. “He’s a naive, innocent character, a bit like Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Idiot’. The reality is too complex for him. Even if he is not ill-intentioned, he is the one who transmits his anxiety to his child”. The confused state of the character makes the ending indecisive, a choice of the filmmaker. “I hate cinematic conventions. Has he evolved as a character? I do not care. I always push the narrative boundaries.” Very applauded, “RMN” might in any case allow Cristian Mungiu to win a second Palme d’Or.
