Manohla Dargis‘s N.Y. Times review of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is one of the best she’s ever written. I haven’t been this gob-smacked by Dargis since she wrote three and half years ago about Michael Mann‘s Collateral: 4 Months director Cristian Mungiu, star Anamaria Marinca. “In 4 Months, 3 Weeks … Read more
The Academy’s short list of nine foreign-language films will be decided and announced next Tuesday, and then the screenings of these nine finalists — which in a fair and just world would include Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — will begin a week from today. The problem, as I’ve mentioned a … Read more
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, the one foreign- language film of ’07 that could arguably be called a masterpiece, was seen by one of the four color-coded Oscar screening committees on 11.2, and the reaction, according to three people in the loop, was “definitely mixed,” as one journalist friend puts it. The result … Read more
A link offered by friendly Romanian columnist Laura Gutanu to yesterday’s Cristian Mungiu interview regarding 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days.
Does IONCINEMA know everything about everything or anything at all, or are they just guessing, spitballing and otherwise improvising like some others I could mention? For a while there I was looking very much forward to seeing Michael Franco‘s Circles on Thursday, 9.10 at the Venice Film Festival. IONCINEMA shared this expectation as of 8.7. … Read more
The 2026 New York Film Festival’s Spotlight section will include Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord (a kind of consolation slot after Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner was excluded from the NYFF main slate), Jonathan Glazer’s Joy of Joys (short doc), Werner Herzog‘s Bucking Fastard, Tom McCarthy’s The Statement (1980 period ensemble drama) and Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid. Hey, … Read more
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 … Read more
HE isn’t foreseeing any NYFF Spotlight insertion of Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord. But I could be wrong. Yes, the controversial Palme d’Or winner could be announced as a Spotlight feature. The NYFF typically announces Spotlight selections throughout August, and always before Labor Day. Fjord’s absence among the NYFF’s main program nonetheless marks the first time since … Read more
Six weeks ago (6.24.26) it was announced that Neon would open Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord, the 2026 Palme d’Or winner at the conclusion of last May’s Cannes Film Festival, on Friday, October 9th. I predicted that day that the launch of the forthcoming anti-Fjord attacks, based on an apparent woke-mob consensus that Mungiu’s film is MAGA-minded … Read more
What films am I missing? What should be deleted and forgotten about? What can overtake The Oydssey, which after all is weakening and losing the mojo as we speak? 1. The Oydssey (d: Christopher Nolan) 2. Fjord (Neon) d: Cristian Mungiu 3. Digger (d: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, p: Tom Cruise) 4. Wild Horse Nine (d: … Read more
Set in a small Norweigan village, Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord “is a complex, ambiguous, thoughtful assault upon left totalitarianism — a takedown of wokethink as practiced by the harshly judgmental residents of said village. “The victims are the newly arrived Gheorghiu clan of seven — an evangelical religious couple, Sebastian Stan’s Mihai and Renate Reinsve’s Lisbet, … Read more
It was announced today that Cristian Mungiu‘s Fjord, the deftly served social-political drama that won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or last month, will open stateside on Friday, October 9th — a prestige film clearly looking at award-season consideration. Costarring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a strictly religious couple-with-kids who fall under woke scrutiny … Read more