This year, a different atmosphere prevailed on the Croisette. Less popping of champagne, less calculated glamour, less of that old Cannes magic where stars descend from black limousines and photographers fire like a machine gun. Instead, the 79th Cannes Film Festival often appeared as a great reflection on a disordered world.
And at the heart of it all: Cristian Mungiu.
The Romanian director received the Palme d’Or for his film Fjord — for the second time after his triumph in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. A moment that not only made cinema history but also fit surprisingly well with this strange festival. Because Mungiu’s cinema never deals with simple truths. His characters stumble in blurred moral zones, through social tensions and ideological minefields. This is precisely where Europe seems to be today.
Fjord tells the story of a Romanian-Norwegian family, strictly religious, isolated, and internally tense. When the Norwegian child protection services intervene, a conflict erupts that goes far beyond family matters. Who really protects whom? Where does care end and cultural guardianship begin?
Mungiu stages these questions with the silent precision that is his trademark. No big explosions. No moral hammer. Instead, looks, silences, small gestures — like cracks in the ice of a fjord, which at first seem harmless but suddenly shift entire landscapes.
The Cannes audience reacted almost with reverence. During the screening, one felt that rare festival silence where no one coughs, whispers, or looks at their phone. Cinema as a collective experience of focus. Are there still many places for this today?
The awards ceremony even resembled a mirror of the times. Many films dealt with war, identity, migration, or political violence. Almost every other film in competition seemed marked by deep social nervousness. Cinema does not look away currently. It digs deep.
This was especially manifested with the Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. When he received the Grand Prix for Minotaur, he made an open appeal to Vladimir Putin, calling for an end to the war in Ukraine. For a moment, the hall no longer resembled a festival palace, but a political forum. Some applauded hesitantly, others immediately. A few stood up.
Cannes suddenly reminded us of those decades when film festivals were still seen as zones of intellectual combat — a bit chaotic, a bit megalomaniac, but full of conviction.
The other awards also fit into this dynamic. Valeska Grisebach received the Jury Prize for The Dreamed Adventure. Her film about migration and crime at Europe’s outer borders tells about people who truly belong nowhere. The directing awards were shared between Paweł Pawlikowski and the Spanish duo Los Javis. Even for the acting awards, the jury bet on community rather than the classic cult of stars.
It almost felt as if Cannes consciously wanted to relativize the principle of the solitary genius. Away from the myth of the all-powerful director, towards the collective whole, the collective narrative. Perhaps also a sign of the times.
Of course, there were iconic moments: Barbra Streisand on the red carpet, Peter Jackson with a slightly tousled beard, the flashes along the Croisette. But even these scenes carried a melancholic tint this time. As if the festival sensed that the world outside the hall had become louder than any red carpet.
And that is precisely why Mungiu’s victory seems so logical.
Car Fjord does not offer simple answers. The film stubbornly refuses to present clear culprits and victims. Instead, it portrays modern democracies as fragile structures full of contradictions. Tolerance turns into complacency. Protection transforms into control. Freedom collides with moral expectations.
That may seem theoretical, but with Mungiu it feels terribly concrete.
One scene remains particularly etched in memory: a Norwegian official sitting silently at the family’s kitchen table, while freezing rain hits the windows. No one shouts. No one loses their temper. Yet, in this silence, there is more threat than in many action films. It is precisely these moments that only great auteur cinema can generate.
Perhaps that explains the success of Fjord. The film is not only about Norway or Romania. It is about a Europe that no longer quite understands itself. About societies that constantly talk about values while often forgetting how complicated human beings are.
That is why Cannes showed less escapism than nostalgia this year — a desire for orientation, empathy, a language beyond ideological trenches.
Can cinema really fulfill this role?
Maybe not alone. But for a few hours, in the dark room, he achieves something that political debate often struggles to reach: he forces people to really look at others.
An article by M. Legrand