In Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord (Neon, 10.9), the ending offers a glimpse of magical realism. I’m not going to spoil it but the film, which is about a politically persecuted religious family of five headed by Sebastian Stan‘s Mihai Gheorghiu (dad) and Renate Reinsve‘s Lisbet (wife/mom), ends with a shot of a young Norwegian girl (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) doing something extraordinary.
I noticed this during my viewing of Mungiu’s film in Cannes last May. I described it in my review later that day. But not a single fellow Cannes viewer has even mentioned it. No explanations or reactions or anything — either you spot it or you don’t.
It vaguely reminded me of a striking levitation scene in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (’68). A pious housemaid named Emilia (Laura Betti) leaves the wealthy bourgeois household where she has worked, and, having been spiritually reborn or rejuvenated by Terrence Stamp’s transformational saint, achieves some kind of mystical transcendence upon returning to her hometown. She is seen floating above a home, prompting locals to revere her as a saint in her own right.
I also thought of the famous final scene in Lars von Trier‘s Breaking the Waves in which large visible church bells ring out from the sky above the sea following the death of Bess (Emily Watson). This magical occurence serves as a kind of spiritual benediction for poor, self-sacrificing Bess, who has recently passed.
