According to Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere there has been some grumbling over Fjord and whether it’s MAGA or not. This was also explored in a Hollywood Reporter interview with the director, Cristian Mungiu, who accurately says:
First of all, it’s important for me to underline that this film is not about the conflict between Romania and Norway. It’s way more than this. It’s the conflict between a layer of society which had access to privilege, education and wealth, access that allows people to be more empathic, and the level of society of people with fewer opportunities which have these conservative views.
This is the first time I’ve heard any artist accurately diagnose what has happened to the film industry in America. I can’t speak for anywhere else. The Left, over the past twenty years or so, became the ruling class. They became the party of the wealthy and that meant their problems became existential, not practical. That meant what they cared about — and still care about — are solving the big problems, like climate change, like racism, and not the little problems of everyday life.
That is what has driven me crazy these past many years as I watched the film and awards industry become part of a new aristocracy in America and tell stories only for them. I long for the days when art could still reach out and touch all of us. That is what movies represented to me growing up. I was lucky. I don’t even know if Gen-Z or Gen-Alpha even knows what art is anymore without the political component. These are champagne problems.
At any rate, I love that one person out there, one artist, was intelligent enough to see this disconnect and perhaps make a film that illustrates it. Calling out the ruling class for their fundamentalism is not “MAGA.” But that shouldn’t even be a question. That shouldn’t be a struggle session for any artist now and that is what it has become. All of you bad people over there (the working class) and all of us “good people” over here (the ruling class). It won’t do.
I think this film is a lot about fundamentalism. If you have a mindset of fundamentalism, it’s not such a big difference between right-wing and left-wing fundamentalism. I think that we should meet somewhere in the middle and start by accepting that some people won’t have the same opinions and values as we have.
I would imagine that artists have begun to feel the oppressive thumb of oppression coming not from the Right but from the Left. The Right’s only role is to play the villain time and time again. They’re America’s garbage disposal. It’s the Left that controls culture and can decide whose career will go up in flames and who is celebrated. I have to laugh every time I hear Susan Sarandon or Mark Ruffalo or Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert whine about censorship. No one can shut these people up and they will always fail upwards.
No, fundamentalism means you can only tell a story a certain way. You must adhere to the strict ideology of the newfound religion OR ELSE. I was lucky enough to grow up at a time when there was such a thing as free thought. That doesn’t exist anymore in Hollywood. Anyone who claims it does is either lying to themselves or lying to you. Everyone knows what has become of Hollywood. They can see it in every movie and every TV show. Very few of them push back.
I was delighted to see Paramount’s The Madison poke fun at the fundamentalism because you so rarely see that. But do you think for one second the Emmys or the industry will acknowledge or reward their bravery? Nope. That’s why it’s astonishing and hopeful that Fjord won the Palme. That means there is a tiny crack – and to quote Leonard Cohen, that’s how the light gets in.
Do you worry that the film could be embraced by right-wing groups claiming victimhood?
Absolutely. I think this is going to happen, but it’s a risk that I thought was worth taking in order to defend this right that we’re still having to doubt the values in which we believe, and also to speak about manipulation.
All the films that I did before were manipulated for one cause or another. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days was considered either a film defending or going against the right to abortion, and Beyond the Hills was considered both a fierce criticism of religion and an Orthodox movie.
So I’m used to it, and I think that we need to use our critical filters when we look at these topics. Expressing doubts about our liberal society doesn’t mean for a second that I’m a defender of a conservative society. It means that I trust progressive society more in its capacity for admitting self-criticism.
First, pause to reflect on the hilarious absurdity of claiming “right-wing groups” are the ones who claim victimhood.
The entire Left is comprised of nothing but victim groups who claim to be oppressed by everything. The reason they are as puritanical and punitive as they’ve become is because of their percevied victimhood against the “ists” and the “phobes.” The Right does it, too, of course. But come on. They aren’t the only ones.
Second, understand that we live in a time when the people with all of the power must police the minds of everyone to find out who they are and how they voted. It is exactly like the 1950s, only instead of the Hays Code we have the Woke Code. Instead of blacklists for Communists, we have them for Conservatives. Instead of fearing our neighbor might be a commie, they fear they might be MAGA.
I would love for this moment to be the moment the fundamentalism in art in Hollywood evaporates. Do I think that’s likely to happen? Nope. Totalitarianism means total power and control over all of society. At the moment, there is no room for anyone who doesn’t go along with it. I hope that changes. At least Fjord attempts to scratch at the edges. But the counterculture revolution can’t get here fast enough.
