R.M.N.

Anhand der Konflikte in einer transsilvanischen Kleinstadt fächert Mungiu das Spektrum der brennenden Probleme des heutigen Europa von West bis Ost auf. Dass die eingesessenen Rumänen, Ungarn und Deutschen miteinander streiten, gehört sozusagen zum guten Ton. Als aber die örtliche Brotfabrik Arbeiter aus Sri Lanka anheuert, ist es aus mit dem prekären Kleinstadt(un)frieden. Die Bürger:innen versammeln sich zum Protest. Wobei diejenigen besonders lautstark gegen die "Fremden" agitieren, die ihrerseits im Westen Arbeit suchen, um besser zu verdienen. Mungiu denunziert seine Figuren nicht, egal, was sie tun. Ohne Schadenfreude zeigt er, woher ihr falsches Denken kommt. (Barbara Schweizerhof)

Csilla is the head of a small bread factory in a country town in Transylvania. When she hires a group of workers from Sri Lanka for a wage the local population would not work for, she unleashes a wave of xenophobic resentment. This is just one thread of a complex, opalescent net of social relations and political references in Cristian Mungiu’s sophisticated drama R.M.N., which offers no easy answers. Mungiu, one of the most prominent representatives of the Romanian New Wave, introduces a whole community of people with different (ethnic) backgrounds who become entangled in a situation which only seems to heat up further with the arrival of the first migrant workers. But Mungiu also forces his audience to take a second look, showing a highly fragmented community that was lacking in unity way before the workers came. At the same time, R.M.N. confronts the audience with their own expectations. Mathias, Csilla’s former lover, who works in a German slaughterhouse, is a Roma who is simultaneously victimized by society while drawing attention for his chauvinist views. With its strange, nightmarish atmosphere, the unsettling appearance of bears and its subtle, brittle way of getting seemingly marginal stories going, Mungiu once again proves to be one of the most analytic observers of European societies.
(John Divney)

Cristian Mungiu: ZAPPING (2002, K), NICI O ÎNTÂMPLARE (2000, K), CORUL POMPIERILOR (2000, K), OKZIDENT (2002), 4 MONATE, 3 WOCHEN UND 2 TAGE (2007), AMINTIRI DIN EPOCA DE AUR (2009), JENSEITS DER HÜGEL (2012), BACALAUREAT (2016)