Hatred is something insidious, because very often it is noticed only after it has taken root. Take a group, majority, struggling with various problems, for example economic. By dint of scolding, anger and dissatisfaction must find an outlet. Then target a second group, a minority this one, and accuse it of being responsible for all the ills of the first: History has taught us, again and again, what will happen next. In NMRCristian Mungiu examines the phenomenon of hatred in general, and xenophobia in particular, from its germ to its uninhibited flowering.
Selected in competition at Cannes, where the Romanian filmmaker has already won the Palme d’Or for 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 daysthe Screenplay Prize for Beyond the hillsand the Best Director Award for Baccalaureate, NMR takes place, like the previous one, in the region of Transylvania. This time, however, we are not in a big city, but in a very small one.
In a judicious artistic choice, Cristian Mungiu took as a backdrop the festive season, a joyful season if ever there was one. This results in some beautiful snowy night scenes. The sequences in a nearby birch forest are also very evocative. Except that this attractive surface is, on purpose, only a decoy: below, what is going on is hardly brilliant.
It all begins on an intriguing note, as a child, Rudi, cutting through the woods on his way to school, comes across something that traumatizes him and drives him to silence. What is it about ? Mystery. At this announcement, Matthias, Rudi’s father, returns from Germany in disaster after attacking his racist boss (who called him a “lazy gypsy”).
Ordinary people
Chorale but not quite, NMR attaches itself above all to the character of Matthias, a man who has all the faults: unfaithful husband, controlling, pontificating, violent (death threats and gun in support), reactionary, bad father in love with all the retrograde theories imaginable… He is the somewhat caricatural embodiment of toxic masculinity. Fortunately, his interpreter, the charismatic Marin Grigore, opts for a restrained game, which breathes a welcome touch of subtlety into the role.
The story as such turns out to be much finer. Disparate at first, the characters and the problems they face gradually come together to form the portrait of a community in the grip of an economic crisis and a shortage of labor (familiar context?).
Thus several inhabitants go into exile to work in Germany in order to provide for the needs of their families, left behind. This, while on the spot, the only company still in activity must hire workers from Sri Lanka, no one in town wanting, and unable, to be satisfied with the minimum wage offered.
And the “native” to point the finger at the “foreigners”. Making up most of the third act, a town council meeting sees people explode with racist remarks, and that’s what scares the most, all there is ordinarily.
The title NMR designates what is called in French MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, which helps in particular in the diagnosis of cerebral affections. In other words, this examination makes it possible to see what is going on in the minds of patients. It will be understood, Cristian Mungiu proposes a microcosm there: mentality of village for global village.
Doom sight
The demonstration gives chill in the back, but scatters during an unnecessarily cryptic denouement. Here again prevails the perspective of Matthias, a man who explicitly favors every man for himself and the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. Throughout, he remains indifferent, even blind, to the surrounding troubles.
This is, of course, another facilitating agent of collective hatred: individualism.
And what about Rudi, the child from the beginning? A tragic event, which occurs towards the end and which concerns Matthias’ sick father, suggests that Rudi may have had a premonitory vision: a way for the film, the most desperate of its author, to establish that the young generation already knows that a disastrous future awaits it. Now, knowing that no one is listening anyway, what’s the point of shouting, what’s the point of talking?