R.M.N. is a kaleidoscopic allegory of all of Western civilization

R.M.N., the latest film by celebrated Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu, tells the true story of an incident of racist xenophobia in Transylvania. In 2020, locals in the village of Ditrău organized a campaign of intimidation and exclusion against three Sri Lankan men who had been hired to work in a local bakery.

Mungiu’s film deconstructs a churchgoing community’s Christian hospitality. His approach is effective: he spurns cheap judgments about superficial faith. His Romanian villagers are forbearing and capable of a deeply appealing intimacy; they are also distastefully self-pitying. The result is a film that combines patience and irony in equal measures. Instead of forgiveness, Mungiu’s social realism calls us to accompany his characters in all their human, ethical self-contradictions.

R.M.N. develops the observational filmmaking style of the Romanian New Wave, a cinematic movement that became an international sensation in 2007 with Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. In that film, Mungiu focuses on two women trying to arrange an illegal abortion during Romania’s communist period. Likewise, R.M.N. follows a pair of characters who share an intimate yet difficult bond: Matthias, home from his job at a German slaughterhouse, tries to reunite with a former lover, Csilla, the bakery’s accountant.