At first, I thought Cristian Mungiu had produced and directed the wrong movie. After a summary analysis, I decided that his choice was a deliberate trick and that they have all fallen for it!

I haven’t watched the film, but I am familiar with the real case, which has been written about extensively. And the reviews confirm that it is a relatively faithful cinematic adaptation of the true story, viewed with a great deal of sympathy for the family “wronged” by the Norwegian state.

1 • An executive summary

Fjord centers on a sharp ideological clash disguised as a family drama. A conservative Christian couple, a Romanian IT engineer and his Norwegian wife, Lisbet, move their five children to a picturesque village on a Norwegian fjord.

They attempt the usual integration: Mihai finds an IT job at the local international school, Lisbet takes a job at a nursing home, and the kids make friends with the neighbors. But the placid setup collapses when one of the daughters shows up at school with bruises.

Child protection services (Barnevernet) step in immediately, seizing all five children and triggering an exhaustive and implacable investigation. The narrative quickly shifts into a cold, clinical procedural where the family’s entire existence is under scrutiny. The state dissects not just the physical discipline, with the parents defending the “occasional slapping” as merely within “normal” Romanian limits, but their entire worldview: a strict ban on phones, a rejection of secular music, and the doctrine that homosexuality is a “mortal sin.” What remains is a tense standoff between desperate parents and a progressive, protective Norwegian administrative apparatus. This seems to be the point where Mungiu leaves the viewer with an unfinished, puzzling story.

2 • The Romanian context

You need to understand that there have been several more or less similar cases involving Romanian families in Scandinavian countries, mostly in Sweden and Norway. The case chosen by Mungiu for his film is the most famous one, but at the same time the least debatable one: any normal-minded individual with secular values would normally tend to side with the Norwegian authorities.

Just memorize a name: regardless of the name used in the film, which is Gheorghiu, this is the Bodnariu case. Bodnariu of Norway.

Later, I’ll mention and describe another case: the Samson case. Samson of Sweden.

3 • Not everyone liked it

Nicholas Barber, with the BBC: Starry new drama Fjord pits conservatives against liberals – and is set to divide audiences (I corrected Gheorgiu into Gheorghiu):

Mihai helps with the IT at the local international school (the dialogue is in English, Norwegian and Romanian), and Lisbet works as a nurse in a care home. Their eagerness to contribute to the community, they say, is bound up with their intense Christian faith. Daily prayers are mandatory; homosexuality is seen as a grievous sin.

None of this sits well with the school’s headteacher, Mats (Markus Tønseth), who is also their next-door neighbour, and the father of one of the children’s new friends. He prides himself on being welcoming and tolerant, but religious evangelism is a no-no in the school, so when Mihai plays Amazing Grace on the canteen piano, Mats isn’t happy.

Then one of the Gheorghiu children comes to school with bruises on her face and back. Before the family knows what is happening, the children are whisked away to live with foster families, the baby included. The situation is every parent’s nightmare, but maybe Mihai brought it on himself. As mild-mannered and loving as he is, he does admit to slapping his children’s behinds when they misbehave. It’s standard practice in Romania, he argues, even if it’s illegal in Norway.

Is he guilty of more severe physical punishments? Are the authorities right to shield his children from this strict, uncompromising patriarch? Or are they jumping to the wrong conclusions because, on one level, they don’t approve of what he would describe as traditional Christian values? For that matter, could it be Romanian immigrants they don’t approve of? Wasn’t there a hint of xenophobia in Mats’ jovial remark about there being no Count Dracula in Norway?

Who is most at fault?

Mungiu makes the point that people on both sides of this heart-rending dispute have prejudices and blind spots. But it’s clear that he favours the Gheorghius. The quiet, reserved couple are condemned by the other characters because they don’t let their children have mobile phones or watch YouTube videos, and yet Mats’ daughter self-harms and gets into fights, so maybe his own parenting is less than perfect.

Meanwhile, Norway’s child-protection system is presented as a purgatory of grindingly slow and callous bureaucracy, presided over by unbearably condescending lawyers. One critic told me that they disliked Mihai early in the film, but later wished that Stan had gone into Winter Soldier mode, and dished out some bionic reprisals.

It’s unusual for the kind of arthouse fare that is shown at international film festivals to be so sceptical about its liberal characters, and so sympathetic towards its conservative Christian ones. And this slant is one reason why Fjord has been so divisive. In Screen International’s round-up of critics’ reviews at Cannes, Fjord has a slew of four-star reviews (the maximum in this context), one-star reviews, and everything in between. It’s “an anticlimactic, underpowered movie”, says Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Or it’s a “Palme d’Or-worthy… fiercely intelligent and gripping movie”, if you believe Pete Hammond in Deadline. I wouldn’t call it Palme d’Or-worthy myself: too many plot holes, too many sketchy caricatures in place of rounded characters. But I must admit, I was desperate to find out how the climactic civil-court case would be resolved.

Next, Peter Bradshaw, in The Guardian: Fjord review – Cristian Mungiu at sea with strange child abuse drama starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan

Cannes film festival: The Palme laureate here makes a misstep with an odd, disquieting film that leaves too many issues unresolved

…

Liberal prejudice against them as Christians or as Romanians arguably plays its part. But the facts of the matter do not seem to be in doubt: Mihai concedes he smacks or slaps the children occasionally – quite normal in the robust world of Romania. But don’t those bruises and marks show something worse than that? The matter is not resolved in court or in the film and then we have a strangely inert and suspense-free finale at the ferry terminal which reveals that the relationship between the teen girls Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) is something else the film has not sufficiently told or not told us about. Mungiu’s technique will always be interesting but this is a disappointment.

Meh. Quel chef-d’œuvre ! Not.

4 • Mungiu’s declarations

“A warning about the risks of societal fracture,” everyone said.

Receiving the Palme d’Or in Cannes, Mungiu described the film as “a commitment against any form of fundamentalism” and “a message for tolerance, inclusion, and empathy,” adding that these are “beautiful words, but we need to put them into practice more often.” (He spoke alternating French and English, so I can’t be sure about his exact words.)

Here’s a hint on whose side he is in a longer declaration:

This evening will remain engraved in my memory. This award makes me happy, but we will have to wait twenty years to know which were the best films. The state of the world is not the best. I am not very proud of what I leave to our children. Change should start with us. We need to talk about relevant things, and these are at hand. We took the risk of raising our voice. What I feel is the radicalization and fracturing of society. This film is a commitment against any form of fundamentalism, a plea for empathy that we need to apply more often.

Oh, it’s “against any form of fundamentalism,” eh? Nope. It’s an insidious instrument against the “too progressive” Western, or rather Northern, societies. He specifically mentioned that the Scandinavian space is the most “progressive” of all.

5 • Enter the Romanian far-right

Cristian Mungiu, upon returning to Romania: “I hope the film Fjord will not be co-opted as propaganda, neither by the ultraconservative camp nor by the ultraliberal one.”

Oh, really?! What would “ultraliberal” mean in a Romanian context? What kind of wokism? Those practicing the “mortal sin of homosexuality,” maybe?

As for the ultraconservative camp, there’s no doubt about its power in Romania. From political parties such as AUR, SOS, and POT to the very president of the republic, Nicușor Dan, to which we should add about a half of the population, the “defenders of the traditional family” would definitely side with the family depicted in Fjord! The Gheorghius, who in real life go by the name of Bodnariu.

The ultraconservative camp was quick to confiscate Fjord. In the evening of May 24, at the controversial pro-Georgescu TV station Realitatea Plus (a more accurate name would be Cesspool Plus), Titus Corlățean (PSD) uttered such accusations alongside Anca Alexandrescu (the Romanian equivalent of Margarita Simonyan):

  • The “normal traditional family” is a “class enemy.”
  • There are hundreds of cases like Bodnariu and Samson.
  • Their institutions have become a child-snatching industry. It is an entire network, an industry for taking children.
  • Children are taken and distributed to other families. The parents who receive the children are former people from the “system.”

A quick reminder:

  • Bodnariu of Norway.
  • Samson of Sweden.
  • Fjord only presents the Bodnariu case!

Why did those bastards conflate the two completely unrelated cases?

Because this is what the far right does! It manipulates. And Cristian Mungiu made Fjord with the precise purpose of helping such extremists!

6 • What’s the deal with the Samson case in Sweden?

Here’s a summary of the Samson case made with the help of Gemini:

1. The Incident (December 2022)
Daniel and Bianca Samson, a Romanian family living in Sweden, refused to buy their 11-year-old daughter a new laptop and makeup. In a fit of teenage retaliation, the girl told her teachers that her parents were physically abusing her.

2. The Immediate Intervention
Acting strictly on the child’s initial statement, Swedish Child Protection Services (Socialtjänsten) intervened immediately under the LVU (Lagen med särskilda bestämmelser om vård av unga — Care of Young Persons Act). They removed both the 11-year-old and her 12-year-old sister directly from school, placing them in separate foster families.

3. The Investigation & Retraction
Medical examinations found absolutely no signs of physical abuse. Shortly after the removal, the daughter admitted she had invented the story out of anger. Consequently, the Swedish police closed the criminal investigation due to a total lack of evidence.

4. The Bureaucratic Deadlock
Despite the police clearing the parents and the child retracting her accusation, Swedish Social Services refused to return the children. Because the Swedish legislative framework formally prioritizes extreme “risk prevention” over the necessity of concrete evidence, the initial suspicion was deemed sufficient to maintain the separation. The parents were allowed extremely limited visitation. The prolonged separation has reportedly led to severe trauma for the children, including suicide attempts by the older daughter. The Romanian state has intervened diplomatically, calling the separation abusive, but Swedish authorities have refused to reverse their administrative decision.

5. The Push for “Anonymized” Adoption
In the spring of 2026, the family’s legal team (ADF International) and Romanian officials publicly warned that Swedish Social Services were actively moving to sever all remaining ties between the parents and the girls. The state’s plan includes changing the girls’ names and identities — effectively “anonymizing” them — to facilitate a closed adoption. This is being pushed forward despite the fact that both girls are exclusively Romanian citizens, not Swedish.

6. The ECHR Ruling (March 2026)
This aggressive move by Swedish authorities accelerated following a major legal defeat for the family. The Samsons had taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). However, in March 2026, the ECHR ruled their case inadmissible. The Court claimed the family had not fully exhausted all domestic legal remedies in Sweden — a procedural technicality that the family’s lawyers strongly disputed, given that the Swedish Supreme Court had already refused to hear their case.

Because the ECHR decision cannot be appealed, it effectively gave the Swedish child protection system a blank check to proceed without international interference.

7. Total Severance of Contact
Using the fabricated “religious extremism” angle as their ongoing justification, the state decided that even the previously allowed monthly supervised visits were “harmful.” The Social Services’ explicitly stated goal became a “total restriction of contact” to prepare the girls for permanent adoption. The parents are now completely locked out, and their daughters have been “disappeared.”

The contrast is striking.

① The Bodnariu case (explored in Fjord) is a tragic clash of values: a debate over what constitutes discipline versus abuse, to which unequivocal religious zealotry is added.

There was some actual use of (light?) physical discipline. Parents admitted to that. The question was how severe that “normal” physical punishment was.

There was an additional direct conflict between traditional religious values and secular progressive laws. Norwegian authorities considered this to amount to “psychological abuse.”

The debate could only focus on such aspects:

  • The state had zero tolerance for cultural nuances regarding discipline, equating spanking with severe abuse.
  • But was it just spanking? Physical evidence suggests systematic abuse.
  • While the religious zealotry in this family was obvious, did it require intervention from the state?

② The Samson case, however, is a procedural nightmare transformed into an “abduction by the state.” A case that started with a pre-teen throwing a tantrum over a smartphone, an accusation immediately proven false and dropped by the police, has ended with the state erasing the children’s identities and adopting them out to strangers simply because the bureaucratic machine refused to admit a mistake.

If Cristian Mungiu referred to the communist regime that “knew better what’s good for you,” I can refer to specific institutions that refused to admit a mistake, so if they grabbed you, even by mistake, you were definitely guilty: the KGB in the USSR and the Securitate in Romania. Is this the model adopted by Sweden? That of the former Securitate, who could never be wrong?

Sweden’s Socialtjänsten has adopted this exact totalitarian reflex of the infallible communist institutions. When a police investigation completely clears the parents and the “victim” admits to lying, a healthy democratic institution drops the case. The Swedish system, instead, doubled down, shifted to “but there is also some religious extremism,” and moved towards forced adoption purely to protect the initial administrative decision. This is not child protection; it is state abduction designed to protect the system’s ego.

The older of the two Samson daughters even attempted suicide because of the Swedish state!

The Supreme Court of Sweden declined to hear the case. The European Court of Human Rights wrongly considered that there are still ways for legal recourse in Sweden (there isn’t any left).

In the end, the Samson case is a failure of the entire Swedish society and also of the European framework.

If there was a case that should have mobilized the press, the human rights associations, the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice, and the filmmakers, that case was the Samsons’s, not the Bodnarius’s.

7 • Why did Mungiu choose the much less relevant case?

Let me rephrase: Why does the Bodnariu case get the Palme d’Or and the international uproar, while the Samson case is ignored?

Why? Because the only film made was Fjord, which shows the Bodnariu case under the false name of Gheorghiu. (Even this choice was a poor one: Gheorghiu has already been misspelled as Gheorgiu by many. Why not Ionescu, Popescu, or Georgescu?)

But why was Mungiu exclusively interested in the almost crystal-clear case from Norway, when a really outrageous case involving another Romanian family was under development in the neighboring Sweden?

A cynical answer: Sweden only has one “true” fjord, or a maximum of seven, depending on the laxity of the classification (is Pluto a planet?). Norway has more than 1,700 named fjords.

Sinister jokes aside, the truth is that prestige cinema (media, too!) thrives on the “grey areas,” not on the obvious ones.

The Bodnariu case provides philosophical fodder even for mediocre minds: the debate over physical discipline, the collision of religious zealotry or bigotry (Romanian: “habotnicie”) with extreme secularism (if “extreme” applies here), and the question of where a parent’s right ends and the state’s duty begins. It is an ideological debate of a kind.

If I’m not wrong, physical discipline is still tacitly accepted not only in Eastern Europe but also in Southern European countries like Italy. And religious zealotry is very much present in Romania, Poland, Greece, and Malta. So the film does have a pan-European market!

In contrast, the Samson case offers no philosophical debate. It is starkly black and white. There is no “cultural clash over discipline” to dissect, but only a fabricated accusation and an out-of-control, soulless bureaucracy that refuses to stop grinding a family into dust.

It is harder to make an arthouse movie (in this case, also a film d’auteur) about a purely administrative error because there is no moral ambiguity to explore. However, it is exactly this lack of ambiguity that should have triggered massive outrage from everyone! But not from Cristian Mungiu.

8 • Why do I suspect Mungiu of the worst?

Based on the above considerations, I could have reached the conclusion that Cristian Mungiu had a commercial approach: make something both artsy-fartsy and of commercial success. Even a major box office success, if possible. Get a second Palme d’Or. Feel the glory. Get priapism.

But I am as Romanian as Mungiu is. Just like him, I wasn’t born yesterday. And I see things as they are.

Many personalities that used to be considered as sharing Western values (called “European values” in Romania) have disappointed over time. As already mentioned, our president himself is one of them.

Mungiu is therefore only one in a long line of public figures who have shown their true colors. Yet another one who just imploded. (Romanians put it more graphically: “Încă unul care s-a detonat.”)

He didn’t miss the opportunity to insist that we should do something about this societal fracture (in Romania, not in Norway!) and stop considering that the state knows it better (this kind of fundamentalism and no other!). Now that Romanian filmmaking (his!) has been one more time validated “in the West, not at home” (his words), maybe we should take him seriously. His film plays right into the hands of the far right!

Oh, the far right, the orthodox fundamentalists, the anti-LGBT “defenders of the traditional family,” and the anti-Western groups will only thrive!

They already started.

But the headlines only read as follows: Cristian Mungiu wins the second Palme d’Or.

9 • Declaration of Interest

Make no mistake, I am not woke. I consider myself a “progressive with conservative values” and an atheist.

For instance, I hold the following beliefs:

  1. There are only two biological sexes. The biologists who claim that “it’s not that simple” are incompetent retards. Primates have two sexes.
  2. There are genetic accidents that lead to disorders of sex development that include intersex manifestations, forms of sexual dimorphism, or hermaphroditism. These are not a third sex or any other sex!
  3. In cases of sexual dimorphism or hermaphroditism, the legal sex is usually determined by the presence of the characteristics of the masculine sex. There is no “other” sex.
  4. Some such situations can be solved medically. Some cannot. Live with that.
  5. Genders are to be applied in the grammar of the languages whose nouns are gendered. Nouns cannot be sexed.
  6. Historically, the concept of gender, applied to humans, was synonymous with sex and used in non-sexual contexts. Gender-appropriate apparel is not clothing appropriate for sexual intercourse, right? Don’t use the term “sex” where it’s not strictly necessary. (Don’t expect decency and pudeur from today’s females, who dress worse than the whores of yesteryear. See this comment and this one.)
  7. Michel Foucault made a mistake when he said something that was prone to misinterpretation: that gender and sexual identities aren’t biologically determined but the result of social constructs. Such philosophy is not for the modern, self-centered, navel-gazing, woke snowflakes. After he said or wrote that, all sorts of halfwits popped up to “discover” similar ideas in Simone de Beauvoir, John Money, and Robert Stoller. “My gender is whatever I declare it to be, depending on how I feel today.” Undoubtedly, the “gender theory” has been hijacked by the “fluid” ones who demand that you use invented personal pronouns when referring to them. These are nonsense and mental illnesses.
  8. A proof of the mental insanity of such people is that they demand a “third gender” on passports and ID cards, refusing to read what those documents have printed as a label: “sex.” Not “gender.” So even if there were 63 genders, or if someone considers themselves (a politically correct pronoun) to be “gender-fluid,” this would not affect the contents of their pants. So the passports and the ID cards are just fine the way they are.
  9. Until something like ten years ago, people didn’t mistake their sexual preferences for their “perceived gender.” People are free to have erotic experiences with any of the two sexes or even with a lamppost; that doesn’t make them “gender-fluid” or “non-binary.” That makes them bisexual. Or homosexual if the preference is stable but “not the usual one.”
  10. Since 2018, job announcements in Germany are for “(m/w/d),” meaning “männlich, weiblich, divers.” It’s meant for intersex and transgender people because Germany recognizes more than two sexes, not genders. This is absurd. As long as discrimination by sex is illegal, why mention the sex at all? Do job announcements mention “for short people, tall people, and other heights of people”?
  11. The invention of pronouns that don’t exist in grammar textbooks is outrageous. English and French made them official. Such pronouns are not meant for intersex people but for “non-binary” and “gender-fluid” lunatics. “What is your pronoun today?”
  12. Some corporations have strict policies that state that each employee should ask any other employee regarding their preferred pronouns. Refusing to address an employee by their preferred pronoun could lead to dismissal.
  13. Transgenderism, in the meaning of “people whose identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth,” is another case of mental illness resulting from the “gender theory.”
  14. The sex assigned at birth is the legal sex, and it corresponds to the biological sex. As previously mentioned, when in doubt, if rudiments of a penis are present, the legal sex is masculine. Case closed.
  15. The insistence of such trans people to use the bathrooms associated to their pretended “felt” sex (was it sex or gender?), regardless of the contents of their pants, is a matter of public security. Would you like a 40-year-old bearer of a penis who “identifies as female” to enter a public bathroom used by your underage daughter?
  16. In a different register, anyone who suffered a sex change operation from male to female and who insists on participating in sports competitions as a woman knowingly ignores that their previous life as a male has left physical changes that make such participation unfair. Let’s put it this way: if you’re not happy with your sex, then stop participating in sports competitions! Or accept your sex and live with it (and with your sports career).
  17. There was, and maybe still is, an industry of recommending sex-changing surgery to confused minors without any parental approval. Most victims of such recommendations sought the reversal of the sex change. Some sued. There was a big scandal in woke Britain.
  18. Another woke concept is that “one cannot define what a woman is.” You’re a woman only if you declare yourself to be a woman. There are “canceling” campaigns against people who don’t bend to this nonsense and call a spade a spade. J. K. Rowling is such a victim.

As you can see, I believe there is a severe case of wokism in our societies. I don’t care if someone believes to have fluid brains, an ever-changing sex, and whatnot. Just don’t force made-up pronouns, genders, and sexes on me. You can have sex with whomever (or whatever) you want; this doesn’t make you some imaginary unicorn. If you have a penis, you’re a male, full stop. The other sex is female. The third option is called “a medical condition,” not a different sex. For genders, the third option is “a mental condition,” unless we’re talking grammar relative to Romanian, Greek, Albanian, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Yiddish, and most Slavic languages.

That said, I can detect religious fundamentalism there where it’s present. I can also differentiate between a legitimate intervention of the state and an abusive one.

There is a thing called “common sense” that’s no longer with us these days.

From what I know about the real Bodnariu case (Gheorghiu in Fjord), this doesn’t look much like abuse from Norway’s authorities.

In the Samson case, though, Sweden has acted like a terrorist state.

Fjord is a film that shouldn’t have existed. There is a hidden, dishonorable purpose behind it.