Cannes got it wrong this year by awarding Palme d’Or to Cristian Mungiu’s very moderate Fjord

Film about a couple on trial for child abuse isn’t a patch on the director’s previous Palme winner, while other disappointing films seemed to grab the jury’s attention These were the prizes for a Cannes under pressure. The Hollywood A-listers and big-hitters were A-listing and big-hitting at home this year. And what about the international heavyweights from Europe and Asia that highbrow festivaliers are always saying are loads better than the Americans anyway? Well, many of those only showed up in the physical sense. For me, most of the films from the accepted laureates and auteurs were very moderate, and I have to confess being sceptical about this year’s Palme d’Or, Fjord , by Romanian film-maker Cristian Mungiu (who won the Palme nearly 20 years ago with his searing abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days). Fjord is, in fact, a perfect example of an established European star director using a big Hollywood name: Sebastian Stan, playing a grumpy and religious Romanian IT engineer,...

Cristian Mungiu wins second Palme d’Or at Cannes for child abuse drama Fjord

English-language debut by Romanian director who triumphed in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days takes top prize

Nineteen years after his searing abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won the top prize at the Cannes film festival, Cristian Mungiu’s English-language debut, Fjord, has repeated the trick.

The film – which stars Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan as Romanian religious parents who relocate to Norway, where they find themselves accused of child abuse – makes Mungiu, 58, the 10th director to have received two Palmes, following Alf Sjöberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Bille August, Emir Kusturica, Shōhei Imamura, the Dardenne brothers, Michael Haneke, Ken Loach and Ruben Östlund.

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