Foreign Film Series: R.M.N.
A few days before Christmas, having quit his job in Germany, Matthias returns to his multi-ethnic Transylvanian village. He wishes to involve himself more in the education of his son, Rudi, who has been left for too long in the care of his mother, Ana, and to rid the boy of the unresolved fears that have taken hold of him. He is preoccupied with his old father, Otto, and also eager to see his ex-lover, Csilla. When a few new workers are hired at the small factory that Csilla manages, the peace of the community is disturbed. The Romanian filmmaker Mungiu returns with a portrait of Europe, perhaps the world, in the days of late capitalism. As bitter and biting as its winter landscape, it stars Marin Grigore as a Hungarian immigrant in a small village nestled among the snowy forests and sweeping mountains of Transylvania. R.M.N. stands for rezonanta magnetica nucleara, or nuclear magnetic resonance, a means to scan the brain looking for things below the surface. It is a metaphor played out with the health of Matthias’ father, whose well-being begins to falter as the village’s racist-fueled anger over the new workers’ presence begins to fester.